Sean McCormick knew Anita’s Grill’s days were numbered.
His father, Arnold McCormick, who ran the restaurant with Robert Wise for 35 years, is 88 years old and in declining health. The restaurant’s elderly landlord made no secret of LSU’s long-standing interest in purchasing her land for its growing medical campus. Inflation was also a problem.
Sean McCormick and his father, Arnold McCormick, owner of Anita’s Grill.
Sean McCormick recently said, “Our costs have gone up significantly over the last three years, but we just can’t keep raising prices. There’s no way daily deals should be priced at $15.”
Still, six weeks after the beloved Greasy Spoon closed, McCormick is surprised at how hard the closure is hitting him, his father, Anita’s employees and loyal customers. He said he was there.
“Everyone went to see Anita,” said McCormick, 55, the district chief for the Slidell Fire Department. “They all keep asking me if I’m going to reopen. I want to. I want to find the right place. I just don’t know.”
weather the storm
When McCormick was 19 years old, his father and “Mr.” Bobby” purchased the diner in the late 1980s. At the time, Anita’s was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Musicians come after late-night gigs. Courthouse regulars gathered for lunch. Taxi driver Jimmy Jackson, husband of the restaurant’s original owner and namesake Anita Jackson, was still alive and would stop by between fares to visit with longtime employees.
Arnold McCormick, owner of Anita’s Grill, purchased the restaurant in 1988 with the late Robert Wise.
“He always stood at the back door and never went in,” McCormick recalled. “He often told me stories about the old days.”
However, things have changed significantly over the next 30 years. In the 1990s, New Orleans experienced record levels of violent crime, scaring some customers away. In 2005, a post-Katrina levee failure flooded the 100-year-old building with seven feet of water, and although it reopened a year later, the surrounding environment was never the same.
LSU then began buying up old homes and storefronts near Anita to make way for the new University Medical Center, which opened in 2015. And in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced restaurants to close for several weeks and subsequently caused inflation. and a labor shortage.
Anita’s Grill, formerly open 24 hours on Tulane Avenue, closed in 2024. (Staff photo: Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Still, Anita’s tried to weather the situation by keeping its doors open while reducing its hours to eight hours a day and eliminating more expensive items from its menu.
“My father was always open to his employees,” McCormick said. “Most of them started with him in the 1980s and 1990s. Now they’re in the 60s and 70s. Where else are they going to go?”
Along the way, Anita’s reputation as the local greasy spoon expanded beyond the boundaries of the Tulane-Gravier district. The Food Network featured the restaurant on an episode of American Diner Revival. Travel sites feature it as a must-see for local dive travelers seeking the authentic New Orleans experience. Social media has solidified its place in the metaverse.
“We were amazed at how many people heard about us, cared about us, and reached out to us since word got out that we were closing,” McCormick said.
end of an era
McCormick said by the time LSU made an offer to buy the building to the restaurant’s landlord earlier this fall, his father knew it was time to close. The building, built in the 1920s as a restaurant, is in poor condition. Food prices continued to strain operations.
“We’ve gotten to the point where we’re putting in more than we’re making,” he said.
Mr McCormick said the family will miss Anita for personal reasons. But he also realized that the neighborhood establishment that served soul food staples like liver, grits and collard greens to a diverse, mostly working- and middle-class clientele that his father knew by name was gone. I’m sad.
Bacon with American cheese-crusted eggs and grits at the timeless classic Anita’s Grill on Tulane Avenue. (Staff photo: Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
“If one of our regulars had a problem, my dad wouldn’t charge him because he’d say, ‘He’s a regular.'” He eats here every day, McCormick said. spoke. “There’s no place like that anymore.”
McCormick has been looking for a potential location for a new Anita’s Grill and recently found one he thought had potential. It’s a parcel next to the Trader Joe’s planned for Tulane Avenue, just a few blocks from the former Anita’s Grill location. He reached out to company representatives about leasing the space but did not receive a response.
“They didn’t even talk to me,” he said. “Our mom-and-pop places are disappearing more and more. They’re being replaced by corporations.”
(Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct that co-owner Robert Wise is no longer deceased.)
