From Tom Fitzmorris’s website covering New Orleans restaurants. Apparently, Ike pushed enough water in the Lake Ponchetrain to flood Manchac and close Middendorf’s. It also flooded the home of the new owners, Horst and Karen Pfeifer. The Pfeifer’s had owned Bela Luna in New Orleans, which did not reopen after Katrina. The water is not down enough for them to assess the damage.
Middendorf’s has come up on the blog before, here, and they (along with Taylor Grocery) were one of two catfish entries in a first draft of my 100 Southern Foods list before I had to cut some things for space. Pfeifer recently came to Oxford to fry catfish Middendorf-style for a great SFA event.
This makes me sadder than I know how to say.