I’m about to tell you, in radio words, a story about photos without actually showing you any but I'm still confident you'll get it because if you’ve visited certain New Orleans restaurants or bars you're already very familiar with this idea.
It’s about our dining and hospitality culture, a feeling that sharpens this time of year as we head out for holiday get-togethers and year-end celebrations.
I call it the faces on the wall effect.
You know it when you see it, these are the displays of photos that cover walls at restaurants and a great many bars, sometimes carefully framed, sometimes slapdash collages. It’s a way of sharing history and personality by celebrating the people who have been part of their extended stories, the ephemeral experience of good feelings from hospitality immortalized. I love peering into them, because of what I see looking back.
It's not the celebrities or sports heroes of yore who once visited. It’s the regular ole’ New Orleans people, the people who are important to the place. They’re the ones who keep coming back and keep places relevant by their patronage.
Their smiles are familiar. It’s the full-belly happiness and third-drink buzz resonating in black and white or faded Kodachrome from long ago. There are wine bottles like trophies on the tables, or they’re triumphantly holding up plates, maybe desserts with happy anniversary messages written in chocolate sauce.
The modern marketing scheme is all about instantaneous impressions. Cue the social media influencers with flashy reels, generally of themselves against the backdrop of a restaurant and its dishes.
But these old analog era photos give a different message, and influence a different feeling. It’s not about marketing, but marking relationships and entwined stories of places that host and people who partake, adding heart to a hospitality culture along the way.
Even if you’re dining solo in New Orleans, or having a drink by yourself, are you really alone? At the right place, just look around for faces on the wall and you’ll find your answer.
