Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published September 3, 2007 Bob Artigues You probably didn't know Bob Artigues by name. But if you were even an occasional customer at Pascal's Manale, you'd would recognize his face. Bob was the man who seated most of the customers in the evenings at Manale's for as far back as most of us can remember. Maybe you even tipped him for that. Tricky job: it's as much about not seating people (because there are no open tables) and persuading them to stay and wait than taking them, finally, to the barbecue shrimp. Bob had other lives. He was a former New Orleans policeman, and so knew all kinds of people. He also had his own restaurant for awhile: a seafood house on Williams Boulevard in Kenner called Mama Nez. It was named for his own mother, whose name was Inez, and you can figure the rest of that out. Real New Orleans family, there. During the early months of my current radio show, in 1988, Mama Nez was the first major sponsor. Because of a strange deal the salesman made with Bob, the commercials ran about five times an hour. That was so absurd that I used to play with them, running several in a row, playing them backwards, playing two copies at the same time, making fun of the voices on them. Bob told me that the more I goofed around, the better results he got. Mama Nez didn't last, though. After a year or so he closed the place and went to work at Manale's. He was there in the same position for seventeen years. I got to know Bob pretty well. His son was born at almost the same time as mine, and they both started at Jesuit together. I felt we had some kind of connection, Bob and me, and it was always good to seem him at his stand in Manale's. Bob Artigues died of a sudden, massive heart attack last Thursday at fifty-seven. I've known plenty of more important people in the restaurant business, but for some reason his passing makes me especially sad. Maybe it was because he was a regular guy. I don't know. I'll miss you, Bob. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com