Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published January 26, 2006 Click here for the current edition By One Statistic, We're Two-Thirds Back To Normal A thought crossed my mind yesterday, and when I checked it out I liked the results a lot. First, here's what I have been considering a basic statistic. My list of restaurants that have reopened since the storm stands at 470 today. That includes any restaurant that cooks and serves food on site, excluding fast food restaurants, most chains, and minimal food operations such as coffeehouses and bars. If I had made a list of open restaurants before the storm using by the same criteria, my restaurant database tells me it would have been 1202 restaurants long. So that's about a 40 percent reopening rate. But yesterday, I took a look at the data another way. I did a search on all the restaurants that had a rating of 80 or higher before the storm (that's my threshold for recommending a restaurant), and came up with 371 places. Then I did a search on all restaurants rated 80 or better that have reopened. That number was 251. Which means that sixty-eight percent of good restaurants have reopened--a shade over two-thirds. That is a very encouraging number. And it stands to reasons. Of course, the restaurants that weren't doing such a good job are much less likely to get back open again. Remember this number if anyone asks you whether they should visit New Orleans for the purpose of dining. Two-thirds of the restaurants you'd want to dine in are open now, and the percentage increases daily. © 2006 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com