It’s New Orleans: Out to Lunch

Hosted ByPeter Ricchiuti

OUT TO LUNCH finds the country's most entertaining finance professor Peter Ricchiuti conducting business New Orleans style: over lunch. Each week Peter invites guests from the New Orleans business world to join him, sometimes for fine dining others for pizza. From CEO's to startups, managers, musicians, biomed needle-movers, Silicon Bayou success stories and entrepreneurs of all stripes put aside the elevator pitch and the talking points and actually enjoy themselves. It's business, New Orleans style.
You can also hear the show on WWNO 89.9FM.

The 13 Block Empire on the River – Out to Lunch – It’s New Orleans

A lot of tourists who come to New Orleans go home and describe the city as an oasis of European-looking streets lined with music clubs where people wander around drinking cocktails and eating beignets 24 hours a day. This fabulous wonderland is the same 13 riverside blocks that locals describe as dirty, smelly, crime-ridden, home to gutter punks, T-shirt shops, and over-priced restaurants they wouldn’t go to even if they could find a parking place.

On today’s Out to Lunch Peter Ricchiuti hosts an examination of the French Quarter from the perspective of locals who don’t shun the neighborhood – they live there. Peter’s lunch guests are guardians of the Quarter as a community:

meg lousteau

Meg Lousteau, Executive Director of the Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents, & Associates

carol gniaday

And Carol Gniady, Director of French Quarter Citizens, Inc.

dennis brady, peter ricchiuti

Peter is also joined by Dennis Brady from the kingmaker of Quarter progress, the Vieux Carre Architectural Review Committee.

Not only is New Orleans’ French Quarter the city’s oldest neighborhood, it’s also the defining symbol of New Orleans as a brand: the world party capital where the bars never close, you can drink on the street, and the fun never ends. How does the city reconcile those two essential truths? Peter takes a shot at answering that riddle on today’s Out to Lunch.

out to lunch at Commander's Palace goes to the French Quarter

All the photos on this page were taken at Commander’s Palace by Cheryl DalPozzal.