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Tom Weatherly, Vice President of Communications, The LRA -- Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, 9/26/2007 8:39:00 PM

Tom Weatherly Vice President of Communications and Research Louisiana Restaurant Association Metairie, La.

In New Orleans, we have just closed our annual trade show, the Louisiana Foodservice EXPO, in which our equipment manufacturers, distributors and suppliers played a huge role. It was a reunion of sorts for our industry, coming nearly one year after Hurricane Katrina rolled onshore Aug. 29, 2005, and brought with it so much heartache and misery.

A lot has been written about Katrina’s impact on the Crescent City’s world-famous restaurants. It seems like I, for one, have been writing about nothing else this year. What most people haven’t read, and may never know in any large measure, is how much of an impact Hurricane Katrina had on our supplier community.

That weekend, most of our restaurants had already ordered and received their supplies for the upcoming Labor Day weekend. There were more than 3,400 restaurants just in the Greater New Orleans area. That is not counting all the restaurants along the Mississippi Coast, too. Now imagine, if you dare, all the accounts receivables that they owed just then. In New Orleans, every restaurant was closed down for at least a month, along withevery other business in the city. That’s not just a month of lost sales, but for most of our suppliers it was also a month of lost collections and for having to write off debt owed by restaurants that may never reopen. All on top of the wind damage and even the flooding these same businesses experienced when the levees failed.

So, it’s not hard to imagine that Katrina was not kind to the supplier community serving the entire Gulf Coast. The bad news is that it was much worse than people could fathom unless they were one of the ones that had to go through it. The good news is that we are beginning to bounce back.

The Louisiana Restaurant Association had committed early on in September to holding our annual trade show in the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. Some people thought that was a risky move given what had happened in the city immediately following Katrina. There was some second-guessing all the way up until opening day. Many skeptics wondered if industry professionals would attend.

Well, they did. We had more than 11,000 foodservice professionals go through the EXPO during a three-day period. Even more important than the raw numbers, the attendees seemed truly happy to be there. They bought new equipment and discussed their plans to rebuild. They tried out new products. They had a chance to talk face-to-face with their vendor partners again. What was probably most important, they had a chance to encourage their fellow restaurateurs and their suppliers to hang in there and continue the long process of recovery.

At the Louisiana Restaurant Association, we see it every day. Things are getting back to normal. Hopefully, normal now means a greater appreciation for what each of us does for the industry. Our great restaurants need vital and healthy supplier partners to make their businesses work. Equipment suppliers need a vibrant community where new restaurants can flourish and where more established restaurants feel confident about reinvesting in new equipment.

In New Orleans, that confidence is returning.

“Parting Shot’’ is a monthly opinion column written on a rotating basis by guest authors. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of FE&S.