Galatoire’s looks to Texas for future expansion options

Published Oct 1, 2012 at 9:00 am (Updated Oct 1, 2012)

While Galatoire’s new restaurant in the Acadian Village Shopping Center on Perkins Road is on target to open before the end of the year as planned, owner John Georges is looking seriously at expanding the venerable New Orleans institution into the Houston market. Georges tells Daily Report he has two potential sites in Houston’s posh River Oaks neighborhood lined up and that he could open what would be Galatoire’s first out-of-state restaurant as soon as next year. “If things go as well in Baton Rouge and at the new Bourbon Street site as we think they will, then we will move into Texas,” Georges says. “There is plenty of demand for a Galatoire’s there.” The new Bourbon Street site that George’s refers to is the former Mike Anderson’s restaurant next door to Galatoire’s in the French Quarter. George’s bought the building, which had been vacant since Katrina, last month and is currently renovating it. When completed later this year it will connect to the existing restaurant and include a downstairs bar, private dining rooms and something else the 107-year-old New Orleans eatery has never had: a Bourbon Street balcony, which will be available for private parties. —Stephanie Riegel