After the March 22 tornado struck, the Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River became a community support center, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
Boxes of baby formula line the pool table inside the Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River, which became a community support center after the March 22 tornado, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Kelly Sheeran (left) and Muriel Altikriti work without electricity at their Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River. It swiftly became a community support center, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Lisa McCracken (right) greets a visitor outside Pirogue's Whiskey River, her bar in Arabi, where homes severely damaged by the March 22, 2022 tornado stand just a stone's throw away. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
After the March 22 tornado struck, the Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River became a community support center, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
Leighann Smith, of the Mid-City restaurant Piece of Meat, tends the grill outside the Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River after the March 22 tornado, when the bar became a community support center, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
After the March 22 tornado struck, the Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River became a community support center, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
The electricity was out at Pirogue‘s Whiskey Bayou in the first days after the March 22 tornado tore through its Arabi neighborhood. But immediately after the disaster, the bar was buzzing with energy.
The powerful tornado hit perilously close. Homes within a stone’s throw had been ripped off their pilings. But with their own bar largely intact, owners Muriel Altikriti, Lisa McCracken and Kelly Sheeran wasted no time shifting to community support.
The day after the storm, they dished out 200 free meals. The next day, still working off generators, the bar became a hub for a growing circle of friends and volunteers to help neighbors in need.
Kelly Sheeran (left) and Muriel Altikriti work without electricity at their Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River. It swiftly became a community support center, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Throughout the day, people from the restaurants Piece of Meat and La Boca, the food truck Southerns and the pop-up Once Around the Kitchen took shifts preparing and serving hot meals for free to anyone who wanted one. The community organization Imagine Water Works set up shop in the patio, with supplies like water and clean-up bags, charging stations and other resources for the long haul.
Inside the darkened bar, the drinks still flowed, on a cash-only basis, keeping some semblance of Pirogue’s own business going.
“We’ve survived COVID, we survived Ida, we’re just a bunch of tough chicks here and we’re going to keep fighting through it,” said Sheeran, while stacking donated baby formula on the bar’s pool table to give away.
After the March 22 tornado struck, the Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River became a community support center, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
A similar urge rang through many others in the restaurant and bar business, and these near-instantaneous offers of help provided more than hot meals and needed supplies for stricken neighbors.
They also provided yet another display of the way community unity can register and flow so strongly within the New Orleans hospitality realm.
Lisa McCracken (right) greets a visitor outside Pirogue's Whiskey River, her bar in Arabi, where homes severely damaged by the March 22, 2022 tornado stand just a stone's throw away. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Businesses from Port Orleans Brewing to the Freret Street dessert shop Windowsill Pies to the Lakeview pizzeria the Crazy Italian pledged portions of sales through multiple days to tornado relief efforts. Some of the smallest players stepped up big too. The day after the tornado, the popular taco pop-up Tacos Para La Vida pledged a portion of sales for a week.
Boxes of baby formula line the pool table inside the Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River, which became a community support center after the March 22 tornado, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Restaurants offered free meals to tornado survivors, like the Arabella Casa Di Pasta in the Marigny and Mais Arepas in Central City. The WOW Café in Chalmette swiftly turned into a collection point for donated supplies to help people just up the road where the tornado struck.
These are just a few examples; see a growing list in the dedicated post on our Facebook group, Where NOLA Eats.
Leighann Smith, of the Mid-City restaurant Piece of Meat, tends the grill outside the Arabi bar Pirogue's Whiskey River after the March 22 tornado, when the bar became a community support center, dishing out free meals and supplies from a network of volunteers and area restaurants. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
These businesses are all part of a sector that has been hit harder than most by the turmoil of the pandemic. Lockdowns, restrictions and mandates have traced a heaving course through the last two years. The struggle to re-staff through it all, felt across the economy, remains acute in the hospitality business, impacting practically every business. While coronavirus protocols are now off, the road back up for many in this business remains steep.
And yet, one sign that they’re getting back in their groove is the way they step up for others, from the community events and fundraisers that again dot the calendar to the swift response to calamity befalling others.
Not long ago restaurants and bars were left wondering how they would make it through the pandemic and if they could reopen. Now they're once again showing how the people who help make the good time roll are there to help their community roll through hard times too.
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Email Ian McNulty at imcnulty@theadvocate.com.
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