It's New Orleans: Out to Lunch

New Orleans is a city of mysteries. Tourists, fascinated by ghosts and grandeur, learn about them on French Quarter walking tours. For those of us who live here, there are other mysteries. Like, “Why am I paying so much in property tax and my street still has massive potholes?” Here’s another New Orleans mystery that may have crossed your mind - when you’re driving down Tchoupitoulas Street. “What...

If you Google “demolition videos” you’ll find a seemingly unlimited number of videos of commercial buildings being imploded, and bulldozers mowing down houses . 99% of these videos are posted with gleeful pride. They’re testament to growth and progress. Wiping old buildings off the face of the earth to make way for newer, bigger, and better buildings. Most cities in America regard this kind of cha...

Back in 1923, a guy in Norfolk Virginia called T. Parker Host founded a company. He called it, T. Parker Host . 100 years later, in 2023, the company relocated the bulk of their operations to Jefferson Parish to what used to be known as The Avondale Shipyards and re-named it, Avondale Global Gateway . The new name is no exaggeration. It is now, in fact, a global gateway. The facility is set up kin...

Perception and reality can sometimes be two different things. When it comes to money, that can be a problem. You’ve probably had this happen: you’re thinking you’ve had a pretty good month, then you get your credit card bill and you get an unpleasant surprise. Somehow, you’d totally forgotten this was the month the dishwasher broke, you had to take your dog to the emergency vet, and you’re not doi...

Every creature on earth is concerned with his or her appearance. I use the pronouns “his” or “her” intentionally, because in most species this attention to appearance is connected to attracting a mate for procreation.  For the human species, things are different. Our interest in our appearance doesn’t need to be connected to mating, or even dating. It can be a form of artistic or self-expression....

There’s more to life than money. That’s true. In some circles it’s become fashionable to talk about the goal of business as being about more than single-mindedly making money. Ok, that’s true too. But it’s worth noting that although money can’t buy you happiness, poverty can’t buy you anything. I stole that witty observation from a meme on Facebook, but it does point up a basic truth: whatever els...

For a good deal of human history, if you wanted something done you had to do it yourself. As societies became more stratified, we developed division of labor. Today, things are so specialized people over 60 comment this current generation can’t do anything for themselves. Despite the fact that kids are writing code that powers the platforms these commenters are posting on, they nonetheless grumble...

If you’d been living in the 1800’s you might have found yourself sitting at a lunch table asking your friends, “What are y’all talking about? What is “ tennis ”?” Today you’re more likely to ask, “What is pickleball ?” Pickleball Like tennis, pickleball is played on a court with a net. The ball is a kind of wiffleball. And instead of a racket, a pickleball bat looks like a big ping-pong bat. Pickl...

We hear a lot about “polarization” these days. And for good reason. It impacts all of us. There are two types of polarization: political and financial. You can probably make a case they’re related, but we’re talking about the financial variety. Most conversations about financial polarization tend to take the same shape. They begin with the observation that more wealth is becoming concentrated in f...

If you lived in New Orleans between 1953 and 2021, you might remember Baker Maid Fruitcake. It was made here, and in its earlier years was hugely popular. But tastes change. Somewhere along the line fruitcake became relegated mostly to the holidays.  In 2009, when Greg Sorensen took over his family business as its 4th generation co-owner, he reasoned if they’re going to make cakes for special occa...

If anything good came out of the Covid 19 pandemic it was the advent of remote working. For some people that means they now work from their dining room table, or spend a chunk of their work day at a coffee shop. Other people have taken the opportunity to move out of expensive big cities to places not known for advancing careers. For example, over the pandemic the beaches around Seaside and Panama...

Anybody can have a good idea for a business. I’ve already had a couple this morning: Ice that stays frozen longer in iced coffee. And a real-time updating system from the doctor’s office that tells you they’re running an hour late. They might both be good ideas. But there’s a big difference between a good business idea, and a good business. That difference is execution. Even in a world increasingl...

Humans are social animals. We like to hang out and talk. We could, conceivably, create spaces where we could go, solely to talk to other people. But the way our society is structured, everything has to be paid for. Would people pay to go to a place just to talk to each other? Maybe. But that’s not what happens. What happens is, we socialize with each other while doing an activity we’re prepared to...

Most animal species go through a juvenile developmental stage where they play with each other. Think, puppies and kittens. Human beings are different. We don’t grow out of playing. We come up with myriad ways for people of all ages to enjoy themselves. Here in New Orleans there’s a whole industry devoted to creating fun things for adults to do. Sometimes it’s in the guise of work as part of a conv...

Specific areas of the US are associated with specific industries. In those places, people who work in those industries can make a lot of money. For example, Silicon Valley is known for tech. Software development is so lucrative for so many people there its driven the cost-of-living sky high. In Los Angeles, the TV and movie industry creates enormous wealth for actors, directors, and a large number...

Walk around the French Quarter any night, go to any music club from the Bywater to Uptown, or join any second-line, and you soon understand New Orleanians’ perspective on life. We’re open-minded and accepting. Famous people move here because they discover nobody’s judging in New Orleans. Everybody’s equal. By and large that’s true, but might I suggest, there’s one thing we’re all judgmental about...

If you go to the drug store and check out the hair and skin-care aisles, you’ll find shelves crammed with products. There seems to be a product for every conceivable hair type and skin condition. But, actually, there’s not.  Even one of the most successful brands, Aveeno, which is owned by Johnson & Johnson, is on the lookout for new products. So much so, that they sponsor a new product search...

People who own their own sailboat sometimes describe sailing as, “Like standing in the shower ripping up money.” The point being, not only is a sailboat an expensive item to buy, but sailing is a prohibitively expensive hobby to take part in. Which is unfortunate because the earth’s oceans, lakes, and breezes are accessible to everyone and, really, we all ought to be able to enjoy them. That’s the...

Oil companies spend a huge amount of money and devote massive resources to exploring for oil and pumping it out of the ocean floor. But, nothing lasts forever. When an off-shore oil well dries up, oil companies don’t exhibit quite the same zeal for plugging the well and dismantling and removing the massive drilling platform. That job is given to a third-party company. Off the coast of Louisiana, t...

New Orleans is a city of distinctly different neighborhoods. 73 of them to be exact. We’ve got broad-brushstroke boundaries like Uptown, Mid-City and Algiers. Within those – and sometimes seemingly between them - we have areas with names like Black Pearl, Gert Town, Milneburg, and Desire. And if you want to get even more specifically local, you subscribe to the belief that no neighborhood is eithe...

From its very inception, and for a couple of hundred years, New Orleans was a place people moved to from all over the world. Toward the end of the 20th century, things started to go in reverse. Every year since 1963 more people were leaving New Orleans than arriving here. Then, early this century, the tide turned again. Among the many reasons for this new wave of migration was something we hadn’t...

When we talk about a business, we assume that success can be measured numerically, in dollars and cents. The more revenue and the bigger the percentage of profit, the more successful the business. We also assume that the focus of the business, is the business itself. Normally, these assumptions are true. But, like all assumptions, there are exceptions. Both Peter Ricchiuti's lunch guests today are...

Around 70% of the US economy is driven by consumer spending. In other comparable economies, it’s different. Canada, France, Germany and Japan, all peg consumer spending at around 50%. What this means is, the enormous might of the world’s most powerful military and globally dominant financial system, is powered by you and me, buying stuff. That, in turn, relies on manufacturers making stuff we want...

When you make a commitment, you’re assuming you have a certain amount of knowledge about the future. For example, when you get married, the vows about sticking together from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health presume there’ll be rough times ahead. What you’re also assuming is, you’re not going to wake up one morning and discover your marriage and...

“Would you like to go get coffee?” When somebody asks you that, you know what they mean. They’re not suggesting, literally, that you might want to synchronize a trip to procure coffee - they’re inviting you to talk. Maybe they want to talk about work. Relationships. Kids. Parents. Movies. Music. Sex. Religion. Politics. School. You could probably list another half dozen conversational topics you t...