NEW ORLEANS — Manda’s Restaurant, the beloved neighborhood Italian home-style eatery, reopens after a tragic shooting rocked the owners and customers Saturday night.
The family-owned restaurant closed over the weekend after two gunmen opened fire on one of their servers, killing him as he served customers.
Since the tragic shooting, customers have been filing into the restaurant since it reopened its doors Monday morning.
“It was a pretty harrowing experience, but we were inside and we heard all of the gunfire coming and we hit the ground and it was a real experience but again, it’s not going to keep up from supporting this restaurant and community for sure,” said Mandina’s customer, Teri Cain.
“We have to show our support to our restaurant, especially this iconic. It’s been around for years, that’s what I’m here for, to make sure that we all know we’re not going to let some thugs bring down a landmark,” said Scott Schlesinger, another customer.
The Mandina family issued a statement saying:
On behalf of all involved in the operation of Mandina’s Restaurant, we would like to thank everyone for their incredible outpouring of support over the last few days. It’s obvious New Orleans loves Mandina’s and we at Mandina’s love you right back.
The loss of our friend and fellow worker Hilbert Walker III has been devastating to our entire restaurant family. He will be greatly missed.
We are praying for the continual recovery of the victim hit by the stray bullet.
Our thoughts and prayers are with both families.
We would like to publicly thank our security officer who was a hero Friday night.
Please allow us to regroup as we set our course going forward and do what we do, serve food.
Thank you and God Bless.
Mandina’s Restaurant has a storied history in New Orleans. In 1898, Sebastian Mandina came from Palermo, Italy, to open Mandina’s at its iconic pink building on Canal Street in Mid-City.
Sebastian’s two young sons, Anthony, and Frank grew up in the family business throughout the early 1900s and saw the business evolve from a grocery store to a pool hall that sold sandwiches loved by Italian immigrants working farmlands in South Louisiana. In the 1930s the business grew into the family-friendly seafood restaurant it is today. Cindy Mandina is the restaurant’s fourth-generation family owner.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.