Celebrities!

Between Jazzfest the past two weeks and all the movies/TV shows currently filming down here, the celebrities have been out-and-about in full force... and they LOVE our restaurants! As an avid tabloid, fashion magazine, and perezhilton.com reader, I have been deemed the "pop culture guru" of both restaurants (arguably the most important part of my job)-- mainly I provide daily pop culture updates and I look up all the stats and info about the stars that are coming in... (yeah, I work pretty hard). The kitchen boys, of course, love to pretend like they don't care about all the celeb action we've been getting, but I have reason to believe that they still run home and brag to their wives/girlfriends about who they cooked for on any given night.

So, in the past TWO WEEKS ALONE, we've had visits from the following:

Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood, Catch and Release, Scream 2, Damages)

Ryan Reynolds (Currently down here filming "Green Lantern," The Proposal, Definitely Maybe, Just Friends, Waiting)

Penn Badgley and Blake Lively (Gossip Girl-- and yes, they are definitely a couple in real life)

Kurtwood Smith (Robocop, Plays Red Foreman on "That 70s Show"... SUPER bubbly and nice in real life... he came into the kitchen TWICE during the meal just to chat and thank everybody)

Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I Love You Man, How I Met Your Mother)

Ryan Cabrera (Musician. Currently dates Audrina from MTV's "The Hills" and once dated Ashlee Simpson).

Alyson Hannigan (most known for her role as the Band Camp girl in the American Pie Movies, also in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and How I Met Your Mother)-- She came in with her baby and her husband Alexis Denisof (he was in the Buffy spinoff Angel)

Steve Zahn (Sahara, That Thing You Do, currently starring in the HBO series Treme... comes in weekly and even brought his family in for Easter)

Maggie Gyllenhal (The Dark Knight, Donnie Darko, Mona Lisa Smile) and her husband Peter Sarsgaard (The Orphan, Rendition, Jarhead, Garden State)--they came in to celebrate their anniversary. She came into both restaurants in one day and he came into the restaurant again the night after his anniversary dinner! Very nice, and she's a lot prettier in person-- I've always been a fan of her acting but never thought she was "gorgeous."


No matter who the celebrity is, everyone I work with knows my two rules:

(1) If I'm not at the restaurant when they arrive (or when it is discovered that they will be dining with us), text me. Immediately.

(2) I ALWAYS get to tell them what their Amuse-Bouche is--that way I can say that I "met" the celebrity and not be completely lying (just stretching the facts a little bit :)

Shameless plug for New Orleans (and our celebrity fan, Steve Zahn):
Tune into the new HBO series "Treme" on Sunday nights. It is filmed and set in New Orleans and takes place after Hurricane Katrina. It's gotten great reviews and has been applauded for how accurately it portrays New Orleans.

P.s. if you want funny blog entries, you have to endure some annoying blog entries along the way! Thanks for reading!