Aging Gracefully -- Brennan's at 50
by Christi Daugherty
New Orleans City Business FOCUS
"We are very proud of the restaurant.
I think it's as good or better than it's ever been." - Ted (center),
With Owen "Pip" (left) and Jimmy Brennan, flanking a portrait
of founder Owen Edward Brennan Sr.
For a half-century, the sunset-colored walls of Brennan's Restaurant
have drawn locals and tourists, the rich and the not-so-rich,
into a small world of elegance in the French Quarter.
This year, Brennan's celebrates its 50th anniversary. Through
five decades, the restaurant, founded by the late Owen
Edward Brennan at the end of World War II and originally located
on Bourbon Street, has held a place among the finest dining establishments
in the country.
Brennan's seemed charmed from the beginning. Since its founding,
the restaurant has been "where one goes" when in New Orleans.
From its early days, celebrities and wealthy travelers have flocked
there. Restaurant memorabilia include letters of praise from society
columnist Hedda Hopper, cartoonist Hank Ketcham, movie director
Elia Kazan and novelist Leon Uris.
Now under the ownership of Owen Edward Brennan's sons, Owen "Pip"
Jr., Jimmy and Ted Brennan, the tradition continues. Resident
celebrities and traveling newsmakers come by, dining alongside
everyday Joes, locals and tourists. In true New Orleans style,
the hoi polloi still mingle with high society at Brennan's. It
is exactly what Owen Edward Brennan always wanted. "We are very
proud of the restaurant," Ted Brennan says. "I think it's as good
or better than it's ever been."
For many New Orleanians, Brennan's, like a few other local legends,
remains the site where great moments are observed. Graduation,
bar mitzvahs, Sweet 16 parties, grandparents' 80th birthdays and
wedding engagements regularly are celebrated inside the 200-year-old
walls. The signature meal remains the lavish "Breakfast at Brennan's,"
which Owen Edward Brennan conceived as a marketing concept-and
which came to rival "Dinner at Antoine's."
The restaurant may have international acclaim, but for Ted Brennan,
the patronage of local families is one of Brennan's greatest successes.
The family can't rest on its laurels, he says, because none of
the customers would put up with it.
"We try to act like every day is our first day in the business,"
he says. "We have discovered that owning a restaurant is never
routine."
Over the years, diners' tastes and demands have changed, forcing
the second generation of Brennans to respond. The Brennan's menu
is more extensive than it was 50 years ago, with new dishes listed
alongside old favorites.
Over the last two decades, Jimmy Brennan's love of wine has expanded
the restaurant's extensive wine cellar to award-winning levels.
Ted Brennan says more than 35,000 bottles from around the world
make it the most complete restaurant wine cellar in the South.
"We try to act like every day is our first day in the business"
he says.We have discovered that owning a restaurant is never routine."
-Ted Brennan
The third generation has had an impact as well. Pip Brennan's
sons, Clark and Blake, share general manager duties. Ted Brennan's
daughter, Alana, works in sales.
The younger Brennans recently convinced their parents to install
a computer system at the restaurant. Ted Brennan freely admits
to having opposed the whole idea.
"We would never have done it without their insistence. They told
us we were in the Dark Ages," Brennan says. "So we had it put
in and it paid for itself in two months. That just goes to show
you what new blood can do."
But tradition counts for much as well. The Brennan family has
been stringent about keeping the restaurant in the family and
the family in the restaurant. They resisted expansion they felt
might dilute the quality of the original.
So determined were Owen Edward Brennan's sons to keep control
of the restaurant that the extensive Brennan family divided over
the issue in 1974. Owen Edward Brennan's younger sister, Ella
Brennan, her siblings and their children now own and manage Commander's
Palace and several other restaurants. Owen Edward Brennan's sons
remain the owners of their father's Royal Street restaurant.
The split left a permanent rift in the family.
Stable staff
Some Brennan's chefs and waiters have spent their entire careers
at the restaurant, helping to bolster the Brennan's reputation
for service.
"We consider our workers part of our family," says Brennan, who
refers to long-time staff members as tenured employees.
Restaurant regulars might feel the same way. Some younger customers
have been served by the same Brennan's waiters all their lives
and dined on meals cooked under the watchful eyes of one chef.
Chef Lazone Randolph has been with Brennan's
for more than 40 years and has overseen the restaurant's kitchen
for half that time. He came up the old-fashioned way, beginning
at the bottom and moving through the ranks.
"I started with the original Brennan's on Bourbon Street in 1955
as a busboy," Roussel says. "I've worked every phase of the dining
room." His memories include busing dishes when the restaurant
cooked for an event held for former French President President
Charles de Gaulle in Jackson Square.
Roussel apprenticed to the original Brennan's chef Paul Blangé
before becoming a chef himself in the 1970s. He has received offers
over the years to open his own restaurant, but says he prefers
working at Brennan's.
"I like the family, I like the customers, and I know the staff,"
he says. "All the things a chef normally wants for his own restaurant,
I have at Brennan's."
His kitchen staff has stability as well. Four cooks have been
with the restaurant for more than 25 years each, he says.
Because of Brennan's reputation for fine meals, Roussel and his
staff have had unusual careers - and they have seen the world.
Roussel has cooked or demonstrated his work in Denmark, England,
Japan, Russia and all over the U.S.
Roussel's career at Brennan's also can be measured in volume.
He and his staff prepared 11,000 servings of Bananas Foster for
one of President Ronald Reagan's inaugurations. They prepared
9,000 meals for a function during the 1988 Republican convention
in New Orleans.
Frequently, the chef steps out of the kitchen to visit with regulars
and meet new customers. "There's something about the look on a
customer's face when they tell you how they enjoyed the meal,"
he says.
Waiter Sergio Davini knows that look well. He has worked at the
restaurant since 1959.
"I came to America from Italy in the 1950s, and I have had two
jobs in this country. One in a bakery, for two and a half
years, the other is here," Davini says. Waiter Raul Castro has
spent two decades working at Brennan's. Like Davini, he considers
Brennan's the ultimate restaurant for a waiting career.
"I like to work here because of the people," Castro explains.
"It's a friendly staff, and every day you get to meet people from
all over the world."
Growing up in the business
Ted Brennan started with the restaurant much younger than did
his staff.
"I grew up in this restaurant," he says. 'I can remember when
they were renovating this building before we moved here from Bourbon
Street, when I was a child. I can remember playing in the courtyard."
The history he and his brothers share helps them keep a perspective
on how they would like to see the restaurant operate in the future.
That means walking a fine line: They don't want the restaurant
to fall behind the times, but they also don't want it to lose
its charm. "The most important thing is to keep it constant,"
he says.
Some Brennan's customers come only a few times in their lives,
Brennan says, and they connect the restaurant with those moments.
To change it in any significant way would be to dash the memories
of those times.
"Many people came here for their first anniversary, and they come
back for their 10th," Brennan explains. "They want to have the
same meal now that they had then, and they want it to feel the
same. When people come here there's something they're looking
for, and it's a moment in time."
Some Brennan's customers come only a few times in their lives.
Brennan says, and they connect the restaurant with those moments.
To change it in any significant way would be to dash the memories
of those times.
Customers who haven't returned to New Orleans for decades tell
the Brennan children and grandchildren tales of their first visits
and their meetings with Owen Edward Brennan.
"I love those stories, and l love for them to be as happy with
the restaurant now as they were then," Brennan says.
Owen Edward Brennan's sons feel the restaurant is a heritage more
than a legacy. They've dedicated the restaurant's 50th anniversary
to the memory of their father, who was just 45 when he died. They
think he would be happy with how they have kept up the family
business. "At the same time, " Ted Brennan says, "it's a lot to
live up to."
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