Tuesday, March 1st is Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. This is the end of the Carnival celebrations in that started right after Epiphany on January 6th. It is a day of celebrating and feasting before the first day of Lent on Ash Wednesday.
Stephen Engel is the managing partner at Buzzard Billy’s near 8th and Q Street and he tells KLIN News is one of their busiest days of the year.
Engel says, “It starts pretty early. We do a quite a few lunch carry out orders. Some of the offices that celebrate Fat Tuesday will come in and get the jambalaya and gumbos and that stuff early. It carries out throughout the day. I would get here early, between 4 and 5 as that is when you start seeing a wait.”
When it comes to the most popular selections, Engel says, “We do a category 5 Hurricane. We will sell 500 Hurricanes. We also do a New Orleans meat platter, the armadillo eggs that we have and gator fingers. The debate is if gator really a white meat or a dark meat so we say it is good for Lent.”
Being Fat Tuesday is one of their busiest days of the year, Engel says it is all hands on deck for employees. He says staffing is such a struggle now that if they had extra they would bring them in. They are at the lowest staffing level they have been in 21 years. He asks that people be patient and everyone will have a fun celebration.