They are going to desperately need to find other employment pretty quick.
We have heard of a lot of proposals to set up restaurants, but we haven't seen a lot of openings elsewhere unless you're talking about Baton Rouge and Lafayette.
The people that are getting into the restaurant industry in a serious fashion like this are the type that are looking long-range to develop three, four, five or six sites and then make that a regional chain.
Our biggest challenge will be to attract our food service workers back -- to get them to return to New Orleans. The biggest problem at this point is for the restaurants to get employees. The situation provides an opportunity for new people to get a position at a great restaurant, where openings rarely had been available.
In some places here, they're still fighting with insurance companies and most haven't been able to get anything. Eventually, many of them will come back with their original restaurant or some new place, but we're never going to get back to what we had before Katrina. Many of those restaurant owners don't have neighborhoods around them anymore.
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