END OF DAYS PART 1

FROM TOM FITZMORRIS' NEW ORLEANS FOOD BLOG:


"The Sale Of The Restaurant Is Mostly Rumor So Far
The New Hurly-Burly About Galatoire's

It's certainly true that news of Galatoire's being sold outside the Galatoire family is front-page news. The place is one of the two or three most essential restaurants in town, one of the ones that defines the New Orleans restaurant experience.

And that the news, a day later, that some members of the family don't like the idea and are trying to block it, is just what we expected to read.

Here's what we don't know:

1. Who all is trying to buy the place. Two of the would-be new owners are David Gooch, a Galatoire who has managed the place for decades, and Melvin Rodrigue, who took over the top operational job about ten years ago after a fault shift in the family brought about the biggest changes in the restaurant's history. But the others are the stuff of rumor, and won't confirm. The names I've heard have something in common: they're local people and regular patrons of the restaurant. That's a good thing. It means that they're not in this to make a quick buck, but to preserve the institution. Wherever that has happened (Arnaud's and Gautreau's come to mind), the results have been excellent.

2. What the price will be. The rumors there quote a number that seems lower than the annual volume of Galatoire's. That would be a sweetheart deal for whomever gets it. No wonder some of the present owners are upset. I get the idea (I'm only guessing at this, because even the people trying to make this happen won't give out exact details) that the sale will be only of the business, not the real estate. Although it's funny to think of Galatoire's without the building it's in.

What I hope doesn't happen is what has caused so much trouble in American business in recent decades: new buyers leveraging their way into a solid business, then diverting the profits from improving the output to servicing debt."