Source::AP
NEW ORLEANS,
During last year’s Carnival season, tourists at the Elysian Fields Inn gathered over breakfast to talk about parades from the night before. At NOLA Art Bar, they sipped cocktails and watched a parade go by. At Kajun’s Pub, many revelers started and ended Fat Tuesday in the bar.
Not this year. COVID-19 is tamping down the joy and the revenue associated with Carnival season in New Orleans. Parades that normally draw thousands in the weeks before Fat Tuesday which falls on Feb. 16 this year have been canceled. In this city where music, food and cultural celebrations are interlocking blocks of the hospitality industry, bars and restaurants that usually overflow with free-spending customers are closed or operating at limited capacity. Live music is all but dead.
The toll of this year’s toned-down Mardi Gras is evident on St. Claude Avenue, an off-the-beaten-track stretch that has become a destination in recent years. Many of the street’s small business owners have weathered so much already that even as coronavirus vaccinations ramp up, they’re prepared for a long wait before business gets back to normal.
Michelle Hagan and her husband own the nine-room inn just steps off St. Claude. Last year, one of the groups known as a krewe paraded right by the house with a procession called Chewbacchus an homage to a “Star Wars” character. She described it as one of the best nights since the couple bought the inn.
“I was really hoping for that again this year. But obviously, that’s not happening,” she said. “It’ll be very different.”
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