The menu at Brigtsen’s Restaurant has always told stories. Between the brown butter, bright remoulade and smoky gumbo you can read the heritage of Louisiana food, the evolution of the modern New Orleans restaurant and friendships reaching back generations. Right now, the menu at Brigtsen‘s also tells a story of our times, all packed for takeout.
Restaurants everywhere are adapting and even transforming themselves in a bid for survival through the coronavirus crisis. On the line are the future of their businesses, jobs for their staff and the roles these places have always played in their communities.
Brigtsen's is showing one way. Marna and Frank Brigtsen first opened this Riverbend bistro in 1986. They shut it down for four months as the pandemic arrived.
They assumed the restaurant would stay shuttered until the state’s Phase 3 reopening process. Instead, the lengthening crisis forced their hand, like so many others. People need jobs back. Suppliers need business. Chefs need to cook.
Getting back open on terms they can accept means converting a homey cottage restaurant into an efficient takeout operation, since takeout is a safer route for service.
Places like Brigtsen’s have weathered daunting challenges through the years, and networks of friends and supporters and business partners have always been part of their longevity. The coronavirus crisis is testing the durability of those networks in new ways.
Carrying on with takeout means fielding phone orders and shuttling cartons of redfish and shrimp calas to the car line outside. It means packing gumbo and butternut shrimp bisque by the quart and bundling whole pies.
Before reopening, Frank Brigtsen rigged up his restaurant with new plastic dividers as a staff safety measure. He also went to the pet store and bought a blue aquarium net, a handy, if goofy, tool to collect credit cards while keeping a distance.
Even in hard times, the chef hasn’t lost his sense of humor. Nor, gratefully, his sense of purpose.
