NEW ORLEANS — If you've driven down Orleans Avenue recently you may have noticed the street is much smoother, and you don't have to weave in and out of lanes to follow a weird traffic cone pattern. Over the past several years construction has caused closures on the street, and unfortunately for Gabrielle Restaurant, it was all right in front of their business.
"It’s been ongoing on and off for 5 years," Gabrielle Sonnier, General Manager of the restaurant said.
"Barricades everywhere, road closed signs everywhere, cones, caution tape, holes, all kinds of things. Anything you can think of for road constriction there was," she said.
Sonnier believes it was impacting business, as several customers thought the restaurant was closed, plus it was happening during COVID.
"Between the pandemic and the construction, it’s hard to say what caused us to lose business. I think it’s probably a combination of both," Sonnier said.
One day, they finally resorted to some funny help in hopes of attracting more business.
"I sent my dad a link one day to a wacky, wavy inflatable tube man and said 'Maybe we should buy one because people keep saying we’re closed' and he bought one," Sonnier said.
"I was kind of joking, but I guess he was like 'No this might be a good idea'. That was our resident wavy man and actually, I do think he brought in business," Sonnier said as she laughed.
The struggles have gone past just the construction though. The area often floods and Endymion even got stuck in front of their restaurant once. Sonnier says some days it's hard as a small business owner in the city.
"It’s definitely a passion project over here. We wouldn’t be doing this if this isn’t what we love to be doing but yeah it does make it hard and it makes us really reconsider why are we even here. Especially because it feels like there’s not much support coming from our city officials," Sonnier said.
So what does make them keep their doors open? The community.
"I think it’s when people come in and tell us what a great time they had, how much they love our food, our restaurant, our family. That’s what makes us keep going," she said.
Plus it helps that finally – after years – all the construction is over. Now, they hope the business can thrive once again.
"We’re just so grateful that it’s done and it’s open and it’s not hard to get to us anymore and we don’t look closed," Sonnier said. "It’s definitely relieving when people ask and say I know about the construction you can say no there isn’t anymore it’s done we’re really grateful it’s finished."
Sonnier says she was told the construction was a state project but the state told us it's a city project. We've reached out to the city to ask what the project was for, what needed to be fixed, and why it took so long. We have not yet received an answer.
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