From The New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published January 23, 2007 Crazy Johnnie's 2$ Metairie CBD: 3520 18th Street. 887-6641. Lunch Mon.-Sat. Dinner seven nights. AE, DS, MC, V. It took a storm to gentrify Crazy Johnnie's. Through most of its history it had the look (and smell) of a bar, even when people waited outside for an hour or more to get in and have one of those steaks of hers. (Johnnie Schram, the owner, is a lady.) The steaks have never been the best in town. But they are certainly good enough. And outrageously so in the early days, when you could get a nine-ounce filet (the standard Crazy Johnnie's steak) with potatoes for five dollars. That was in the late 1980s, when a fiver would cover the food cost and a bit more. There was a gimmick: you were required to have a drink. The gimmick worked. It stampeded traffic to the door. So much so that, across the street, Tommy Cvitanovich looked at the crowd and wondered what he had to do to make that happen at Drago's, where char-broiled oysters had not yet been invented and business was (believe it or not) sluggish. He decided to offer a lowball Maine lobster, and from that moment Drago's turned around. The flood washed into and out of Crazy Johnnie's, and they renovated in the course of rebuilding. They made it more family-friendly, added some windows (really, they returned windows that had been taken out long ago), and brightened the scene up significantly. Steaks are no longer five bucks at Crazy Johnnie's. But fifteen dollars for a more-than-decent steak and potatoes platter cannot be called a ripoff. It's still far from the best steak in town (some people actually claim that it is), but I've paid twice as much for a steak half as good. What's unexpected about Crazy Johnnie's is how many other specialties are excellent. The stuffed artichoke, for example. My wife is a stuffed artichoke fanatic, and she says this one is better than any she's ever had in a restaurant. I'd rank their seafood gumbo among the ten best locally. They make a version of barbecue shrimp that I wouldn't cross town for, but as long as you're there and have that chunk of French bread in your hand, you may as well split an order, since it's certainly good enough and only ten bucks for a big bowl with lots of sauce. (You can also get an order of the sauce and bread for two dollars.) The "table salad" is a fine mixed green salad with an interesting vinaigrette, big enough to serve at least two for a fiver. People not wanting steak for an entree will find tuna and chicken breasts, each simply grilled, for under $10. Crazy Johnnie's has never offered frills. No tablecloths or bread and butter (unless you pay for it). The wine list is abbreviated (on Tuesdays, though, they sell the wines at cost). The servers are a lot of fun--probably reflecting Johnnie's own every-day's-a-party attitude. If it were only cheap, I wouldn't think it worth writing about. But, counter-intuitive though it may seem, this has always been a good place to eat. Click here to return to today's edition. Click here for an index of all restaurant reviews. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com.