At the historic, old-line restaurants of New Orleans it can sometimes feel like time stands still. But soon the city’s second-oldest restaurant will be on the move.
Tujague’s Restaurant will relocate from its longtime home at 823 Decatur St. to 429 Decatur, a few blocks upriver, owner Mark Latter confirmed.
The new address, a three-story building that dates to the 1840s, was previously home to the restaurant Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., which closed last year.
Latter intends to open Tujague’s there by August, following a renovation slated to begin soon. He plans to keep the current location open until the time of the move.
Such a change for this historic restaurant is momentous. Tujague's is steeped in lore and has for generations been part of the traditional Creole old guard in the New Orleans food world. Back in 2013, news that it might close during a thorny family succession dispute sent shock waves through the city's dining scene.
Now, though, Latter frames the upcoming move as an economic necessity to keep Tujague’s a part of that dining scene.
“In order to keep the traditions everyone loves and talks about here going, we have to move,” he said. “We can’t do what we’ve always done and survive. We have to change, and that’s what this comes down to.”
While the distance between the current and future locations is short, it represents a dramatic move for a restaurant many people visit to commune with the past. Only Antoine’s Restaurant, opened in 1840, has a longer history in New Orleans.
Tujague’s dates to 1856. This will be the second time it has relocated, though the first move was more than a century ago. It originally opened at 811 Decatur and moved in 1914 to 823 Decatur, where it weathered world wars, Prohibition and generations of change in the city’s economy and social fabric.
Visitors convene around the bar at Tujague's Restaurant, a historic restaurant long known as a French Quarter destination and haunt for its regulars.
Through the years, its dining room has been a family holiday destination, always open on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Meanwhile, its bar has been a home base for everyone from carousing politicians to French Quarter bohemians, developing a reputation as a neighborhood haunt. (There is also a rumored ghost haunting the restaurant.)
Tujague’s is known for a five-course table d’hôte menu, a format that reaches back to the restaurant’s 19th century roots. Like other old-line Creole restaurants, the defiance of dining trends was long part of its character.
Eventually, however, change caught up with the old restaurant.
Carriage driver Charlotte Jones and her mule, Chica, pass in front of Tujague's Restaurant in New Orleans on Thursday, October 10, 2019. The historic restaurant is part of the cultural landscape and ambiance of the French Quarter, with its long history and evocative neon signs reaching over its gallery.
Latter does not own the building Tujague’s calls home. It is owned by a company called TKM-Decatur, which is registered to Tina Motwani Narra. She is the daughter of local real estate mogul Mike Motwani, best known for his numerous T-shirt shops and frequent clashes with preservationists.
The restaurant’s lease is coming due in 2021. Latter would not discuss the terms he was offered for a renewal, but he said the end of the lease spurred him to take a hard look at Tujague’s future. He determined a move would be an act of preservation, since the business must be financially viable for Tujague’s cultural role to continue.
Latter said the move will be an emotional one for him as well.
Mark Latter became proprietor of Tujague's Restaurant in 2013, following the death of his father Steven Latter. The venerable French Quarter restaurant underwent a round of renovations that year.
“I grew up there. I can remember being my own son’s age, hanging out with the regulars here,” he said. “But the fact is there just aren’t that many people living in the French Quarter anymore to keep it the way people remember. If we’re going to keep this around for the next generation, I had to do this.”
Mike Motwani said he plans to seek a new tenant for the space and hopes to attract another restaurant.
“That’s the best use for it,” Motwani said. “That is a very iconic location, and we definitely want to have another restaurant in there.”
He said he is not interested in developing retail shops there. “We have so many gift shops along that street already, it would just be competition for ourselves,” he said.
Neon signs light the way to Tujague's in the French Quarter.
It looked like Tujague’s might close for good in 2013 when Mark Latter’s father, Steven, proprietor of the restaurant for three decades, died suddenly at age 64.
At the time, Steven’s brother Stanford Latter owned 823 Decatur. Fans of Tujague’s were alarmed by reports that the building would be sold. There was an impassioned public response, including offers from other restaurant operators to partner with Tujague’s and a surge of full reservation books from those seeking a last supper under its roof.
Boiled brisket of beef with Creole horseradish sauce has long been a traditional dish at Tujague's Restaurant in New Orleans.
Behind the scenes, however, Mark Latter was able to buy the restaurant business from his family, and he secured an eight-year lease on the building from his uncle. Stanford Latter later sold the property to TKM Decatur.
The restaurant closed briefly in 2013 and emerged after a remodeling of its old, panel-lined dining room and a menu revamp that brought dishes like crawfish gnocchi and crabmeat Cobb salads into play next to the house standards of boiled brisket and shrimp remoulade.
Now, Latter foresees a future for Tujague’s of transplanted traditions and new opportunities in a rapidly changing New Orleans restaurant business.
Tujague's Restaurant in New Orleans dates to 1856 and has been located at 823 Decatur St. since 1914.
With its new location, Tujague’s will more than double in size. It will have a vastly larger kitchen and a small courtyard for outdoor dining and events. It will have more and larger private dining rooms, the bread and butter for upscale French Quarter restaurants.
However, Tujague’s will lose one of its most beloved features — the antique bar that runs nearly the length of the front room. Famously a “stand up bar,” with no stools, it’s long been regarded as one of the indispensable stops on any drinking tour around the French Quarter.
The towering back bar, however, is made of plaster. Given its age, Latter doubts it would survive removal and relocation. Instead, he plans to build a new bar at 429 Decatur based on historic photos.
“We’re really disappointed we can’t bring the bar,” he said.
Latter said he did not yet know if the neon signs that now trace the Tujague's name over Decatur Street can be moved.
The bar at Tujague's Restaurant is a celebrated stop for a drink in the French Quarter.
The renovation now set to begin at 429 Decatur will be sweeping. While the building spent 20 years as a casual theme restaurant based on the movie “Forrest Gump,” Latter outlined a plan to burnish the property’s historic bones and re-create the familiar feel of Tujague’s.
“The most important thing to me is that when people who know Tujague’s walk in, they still feel like they’re at Tujague’s, even if the address is different. That’s the goal,” he said.
On the ground floor, visitors will enter a large bar area through open French doors. A design of hexagonal floor tiles, wainscoting and mirrors is based on the old Tujague’s; fans and light fixtures will come directly from the old location.
A vintage matchbook from Tujague's advertised the historic restaurant's table d'hote menu approach.
This front area will be set up for drop-in meals and quick visits, aligned with dining trends for more casual outings.
“Not everyone is coming for the five-course meal anymore,” said Latter. “This will make Tujague’s more accessible to more people.”
The ground floor will have a back dining room that opens to a courtyard. The second floor has three dining rooms, with one overlooking the courtyard and two opening to a balcony with a view of the Mississippi River.
The third floor will have two more dining rooms, including a wine room.
Latter is leasing the property at 429 Decatur St. Public records show the property was sold late last year for $5.1 million to Kara Farm LLC, based in Texas.
The building at the corner of Decatur and Madison streets, shown here as Begue's Exchange, became Tujague's in 1914. Tujague's was founded a few doors up the street in 1856.
The old-guard restaurants of New Orleans are regaled, and sometimes ridiculed, for resistance to change. But in fact, the years since Hurricane Katrina have brought a great deal of change to the city’s historic restaurants.
Antoine’s turned one of its dining rooms into the Hermes Bar, open to the street with a menu of bar snacks and po-boys, a bid to draw more casual visitors. In 2009, Galatoire’s Restaurant was bought by a new ownership group (led by John Georges, who is also owner of The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate) and subsequently developed a new bar and steakhouse next door, nearly doubling its size.
Founded in 1856, Tujague's Restaurant is the second-oldest dining establishment in New Orleans. Soon, though, the historic restaurant will mov…
Brennan’s Restaurant changed hands in 2013 after a bankruptcy, underwent a massive renovation and emerged with a much more modern culinary tone. Broussard’s Restaurant, which has had a number of owners and incarnations through the years, was bought in 2013 by Creole Cuisine Restaurant Concepts and underwent a renovation. And at Arnaud’s Restaurant, the next generation of the longtime family owners have been gently charting a more contemporary course.
Irene's Cuisine, a much newer but also traditional French Quarter restaurant, relocated last year after losing its longtime lease.
Tujague’s takes its name from Guillaume Tujague, an immigrant from France who once had a butcher’s stand in the French Market, according to the 2015 “Tujague’s Cookbook,” by Poppy Tooker.
The bar at Tujague's, shown here in an undated photo from the restaurant's archives.
By 1856, he had opened his restaurant across from the market at 811 Decatur St. In 1914, two years after Guillaume Tujague’s death, the family relocated it to 823 Decatur St., which had previously been home to Begue’s Exchange, a famous dining destination of its day.
Soon thereafter, the restaurant was being operated by Philip Guichet and John and Clemence Castet. The Latter family bought the restaurant from the Guichet family in 1982, when Tujague’s was already 125 years old.
For at least 30 years native French Quarter residents, Peter Caruso, 70, Sonny Faggert, 90, Floyd Barrois, 72, and Francis Marin, 83, have sat outside the doorway of Tujague's Restaurant in New Orleans. Every evening they have two glasses of red wine then walk home.
Mark Latter said he had not planned on running Tujague’s until his father's death left the responsibility for continuing the restaurant at his feet. Today, with the die cast on the upcoming move, he’s taking a long view on its history and future.
“Since it moved before, I don’t feel the building defines the restaurant,” Latter said. “The traditions, the culture, the food — that defines it, and that is continuing.”
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