June 27
th, 2015 I was doing a ghost tour in the French Quarter
and brought my group to the building that used be O’Flaherty’s Irish Pub at 508 Toulouse St.,
now a restaurant known as Creole Cookery.
As we stood across the street and I was telling my story, a woman in my
group grew faint from the heat and collapsed into a doorway.
Naturally, we all rushed to offer her our
assistance.
She came to fairly quickly
and people offered her water.
I asked if
there was anything I could do, her friend said they wanted a cab.
So, I started calling for a cab (got busy signals but kept trying) and watching
the traffic on Toulouse Street
to see if I could hail a taxi.
As we were dealing with this, the barker from Creole Cookery
(whose name is Solomon) came across the street toward us with a pleasant smile
and started trying to hand out menus and invite us all to come over to eat. I told
him “Solomon, right now we’re dealing with a bit of an emergency.” He continued to try to give a sales pitch to
my group. I came over and said “Solomon,
this is not an appropriate time to be handing out menus, we are dealing with a
bit of a crisis.” Well, he went away and
shortly afterward a young woman came over with menus, smiling, and started
trying to hand them out. I told her the
same thing, in a stern voice. She said she
had a right to hand out menus and that I shouldn’t speak to her that way. I said “We’re dealing with an issue now, you
need to go.”
Mind you, I have a woman sitting in a doorway with a
group
around her, I have others trying me help me hail a cab while I’m waiting
for a cab company to answer the phone and here is Creole Cookery trying
to make a
sale without offering any assistance – just a sales pitch. Eventually A. J., the owner of the joint, comes over and rudely tells me that they can AND WILL offer menus to these
people. I said “Look, we’re in the
middle of a health issue here – this is not an appropriate time.” His response was “Bring her over into the air
conditioning and you all can have a drink until she feels better." He said this despite the fact that she was sitting in an open shop
doorway and the air conditioning was blasting out from the shop where we were.
One of my guests said “Really?”
THEN --- A.J. (who was still trying to force menus into my
guests' hands) said “Keep us in mind for breakfast. We’re open for breakfast.” No one in my group accepted a menu and pretty
much everyone was offended that Creole Cookery saw this as an opportunity to
make a sale. Eventually a taxicab came along, the woman’s friend helped
her to the cab and they went back to their hotel. I finished my story and
quickly moved along.
I just want everyone to know about this – here the people of Creole Cookery had an
opportunity to say “Let me help you get a cab” – or to come over with a bottle of
water – or offer to call an ambulance or…ANYTHING! Instead of offering assistance they tried to shove menus into the
hands of a group of people who were concerned for this woman and said “Come and
have dinner here! Come have a drink
here! Come have breakfast here!” That tells you the kind of place Creole
Cookery is. As for me, I will choose
another route and tell a different ghost story and I will not stop in front of Creole
Cookery ever again.
Tell everyone you know.
