New Orleans Food Questions And Comments

Charlie's Steak House On The Way Back

The most often-asked question on this site and on my radio show for the last two years is: "When is Charlie's Steak House coming back?" It comes up almost every day, and if everybody who asked it had eaten at Charlie's once a month or more often, the place would have had a line around the block.

Dottye Bennett, the daughter of the original Charlie Petrossi who opened the restaurant in the 1930s. She was also the waitress for the entire time that anyone reading this dined there. She's eighty-one now, but still working, and still bowling (well, too). Charming lady. Her brother Charles "Sonny" Petrossi, Jr. passed away a few years ago. In the fall of 2007, his widow sold the restaurant to Matthew Dwyer, a man who lived next door to Charlie's, and worked there for a short while a long time ago.

Dwyer tells me that he will reopen it as Charlie's Steak House, and that they've found most of the cooks, who were able to supply the recipes for everything from the old restaurant. Dwyer also plans to make the bar a lot more inviting. Which wouldn't take much, if you remember how it looked. (Indeed, Charlie's was rivaled only by Uglesich's in its run-down condition.)

The original date for reopening was December, but to nobody's surprise it has taken longer. Nothing had been done since the hurricane, which put about a foot and a half of flood water into the old joint. The renovation has been complicated, but is coming along. So don't be in a hurry for the thin-sliced onion rings, the wedges of lettuce with screaming Roquefort dressing, or the gigantic sizzling T-bone. But do start thinking about all that, because Charlie's will be back, probably sometime this spring.

Charlie’s Steak House. 4510 Dryades. 895-9705. (Not yet open.)
3/9/08

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