Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Ruth's Return
Posted by Ian McNulty on Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 4:34 PM
Talk about Ruth's Chris Steakhouse returning to the city of its birth has been circulating for months, and this week the company has officially confirmed its plans.
In an interview, Ruth's Chris CEO Craig Miller said the steakhouse chain intends to open a new restaurant in Harrah's Hotel in downtown New Orleans as early as May.
Ruth's Chris is now working on plans to convert the first-floor space in the hotel occupied by the restaurant Riche into what Miller describes as a "flagship" location for the company. The new restaurant will have outdoor seating along the Fulton Street pedestrian mall, will have banquet rooms and will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner daily and possibly serve Sunday brunch as well. Breakfast will primarily be a service to the hotel, Miller says, and is standard practice at 15 other Ruth's Chris restaurants located in hotel properties.
Miller says an agreement with Harrah's gives the steakhouse the option to locate to a larger space along the Fulton Street corridor in the future, although he says there are no immediate plans to do so.
The Harrah's Hotel location will put Ruth's Chris in the fulcrum of the downtown business and entertainment district. The area is also home to an array of other high-end steakhouse chains and independent local operators, including Morton's, Shula's, Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse, Besh Steakhouse, located inside the casino itself, and even the Argentine-style La Boca. But Miller says such proximity of rivals is business as usual for Ruth's Chris in many of its other markets.
"We're used to having competitors next to us, so that's nothing new to us," says Miller.
Ruth’s Chris reopened its Metairie location a few months after Katrina. The company's Mid-City location, built near the original restaurant operated by Ruth Fertel, the New Orleans homemaker turned steakhouse empire builder, was badly flooded by the levee failures and remains closed. Ruth's Chris still owns that North Broad Street property and Miller says the company plans to donate it to an as-yet-unnamed philanthropic group.
Ruth's Chris relocated its headquarters from Metairie to the Orlando, Fla. area shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Miller says the company has no plans to move its corporate base back to the New Orleans area.
From its first New Orleans restaurant, which Fertel bought in 1965, Ruth's Chris has grown into an international, publicly-traded company. In February alone, the company opened its second restaurant in Utah and its first in Aruba, bringing the total number of Ruth's Chris locations to 119.
- Ian McNulty
Comments (5)
Showing 1-5 of 5
F@*# Ruth's Chris!! After they moved headquarters to Orlando (WTF?) I swore that I would never set foot in one again. Now they plan on putting a "flagship" restaurant here? Again F@*# them. We don't need another bohemoth corporate-owned steakhouse in New Orleans. Support your local restaurants people!
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Reopen ruth's where it belongs, On BROAD STREET. Ruth's will not be the same in the Harrah's hotel. It looks like it is going to be marketed to tourists rather than to the locals that have supported the restaurant forever. Ruth's will just be one more steakhouse in downtown New Orleans. Ruth Fertel would have had the broad street store reopened within months of the storm, and it probably would have been the centerpiece of rebuilding that portion of mid city. The Broad street property should be given back to the fertel family to reopen the restaurant if our corporate florida steakhose that bears a New Orleans name does not want to reopen it. The only good thing is that Ruth's Chris stock has gone down the tubes, and will be worthless soon.
I haven't eaten at a Ruth's Chris since Katrina. And I won't, ever again. The company-a part of this city-abandoned it at its lowest moment. I don't feel any loyalty to a company like that.
A post titled "Ruth's Return" fooled me into thinking that Ruth's Chris had realized their mistake and was bringing its corporate office home. No such luck. Ruth Fertel never would have turned her back on her home when it needed her the most. Those in charge today (read: shady lowlifes) obviously feel no loyalty to New Orleans. I don't see why we owe them any in return. I hope the tourists enjoy their new casino eatery, 'cause I never will.
Change is hard, and Katrina was an uninvited dose of change that has challenged all of us who live here. Some of the people who wanted to return couldn't. Some returned and found that they couldn't stay. Do we condemn people who make the decision not to stay? Why, then, do we so quickly condemn Ruth's Chris for moving it's corporate offices? People had a similar reaction about Popeyes when it moved its corporate offices to Atlanta. What people don't know is how these corporations actually operate. Ruth's Chris was on the verge of going public when Katrina hit. Having the corporate offices in a city with an uncertain short-term future, and poor airport capacity, would have probably meant delaying the public offering. Remember, Ruth sold shares in her company willingly to people that she assumed would grow the company and make it more vibrant. When Ruth's opens the location at Harrahs it will be attempting to create a success where Todd Riche apparently wasn't able to. Ruth's will be hiring local people. If you boycott Ruth's Chris you will be affecting the lives of those who work there, and the servers work mostly for tips. If you want to boycott Ruth's then you are certainly free to do so, but I wouldn't cheer for an outright failure. The more businesses that fail in New Orleans the worse off we all are. We need to try to understand people (and companies) and hope for a brighter future rather than dwell on a dismal past.
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