NEW ORLEANS — If someone asked you, "Who is the biggest restaurant group in New Orleans?" you might think the answer would be Brennan's, maybe Emeril LaGasse or some other big name.
But you'd be wrong. The biggest restaurant group is probably a company you haven't heard of - Creole Cuisine Restaurant Concepts. They actually have more than 20 restaurants, and some of them are very well known names.
In Today's Main Course, we meet the three brothers who came to the United States from Jordan when they were still in their teens. Their empire began when the oldest of the three brothers opened a daiquiri shop in Chalmette when he was only 19 years old.
Marv Ammari and his two brothers Richey and Zeid are on their way to being restaurant moguls. In 1989, when Marv was still in college, he got wind of a place available in Chalmette. And, with the backing of his father, he opened a daiquiri shop.
"We were just having fun, really. There was no plan. It was kind of a reactive kind of a situation," Marv said.
Marv came to New Orleans in 1985. His brother Richey came in 1988, and his youngest brother Zeid in 1991.
After Daiquiri Paradise in Chalmette did well, Marv opened a second location called Big Easy Daiquiris on Bourbon Street. He opened a third location on Decatur Street. His brothers joined the business, and they were off and running.
Then another opportunity came their way that changed the direction of their company.
"A place came available on Chartres and Toulouse, and we felt we wanted to do something a little different," Marv Ammari said. "There was a need for a restaurant in that corner, so we opened the Chartres House in 2003. I think it was French Quarter Fest in April."
The small family business - a few daiquiri shops and one restaurant - began to blossom after Hurricane Katrina.
"We have about 30 establishments. About 22 of them are restaurants and the rest are daiquiri shops," Marv said.
They have some pretty well-known restaurants like Broussard's, Tommy's, The Bombay Club, Flamingo a Go Go, Curio, Cafe Maspero and Boulevard in Metairie, to name a few. And with more than twenty restaurants in their portfolio, all three brothers say they are more businessmen than restaurateurs, but they will make suggestions occasionally about the food.
"Naturally that's something that we give feedback. Zeid is the heaviest when it comes to that, being that he's the operator," Richey said.
And if you didn't know that one company, Creole Cuisine, owns a bunch of your favorite restaurants, that's by design.
"We don't like to raise a flag and bring attention to ourselves. We like to be humble and just really enjoy what we're doing and technically just do our job. We really enjoy the job, we enjoy taking care of our guests, we enjoy the interaction of the guests, we enjoy the guests leaving the building happy." Zeid Ammari said.
All three brothers are equal partners in their business, each handling different parts of the operations.
"It's really difficult to work with family," Marv said.
That being said, Marv says they do it very well because when there's a disagreement, they hash it out until it's settled.
"Once we leave, we speak with one word, one language and we move forward," Marv said. "So there's respect, love between us. We're a family business. Family is first then it's a business. I'm not going to lose my family to gain a business."
"The biggest failure in family business is not having an understanding between the members and that's one thing that we made ourselves understand and agree on. We have a saying, 'Leave your ego at the door,'" Richey added.
"We treat this as a family first. This is a family business first. There's three brothers here before there's a business," Zeid said. "It happens that our conversation some part of the day is in reference to a business. So those business conversations are treated respectfully, very heated at times when they need to be, because we are very open, we express... we actually, it's not just us three, we actually ask - and I hate to use this word 'demand' - but we actually demand it from our employees because a discussion in a respectful manner is very important and very productive."
---
More Episodes of Today's Main Course:
---
WWL-TV Anchor Eric Paulsen can be reached at epaulsen@wwltv.com;