Jay Nix has climbed the ladder enough that he rarely works Sundays at his restaurant, Parkway Bakery & Tavern.
But he’s glad he came into the Mid City New Orleans restaurant yesterday. President Obama, the First Lady and their daughters showed up for lunch. Obama was due to speak later that day at Xavier University of New Orleans to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
“He made us feel very special,” said Nix, a former contractor who entered the restaurant business seven years ago.
“It’s not good luck,” says Nix, a Louisiana Restaurant Association member who attributes his success to good food, friendly employees, great location, great atmosphere and “plenty, plenty blessings.” The most recent blessing was the First Family’s visit, he says.
Nix had spent the previous day celebrating his engagement to Sandra Kruse, the restaurant office manager. Kruse planned to go to a jewelry party on Sunday, so Nix decided to go to work. Soon after she left, the restaurant received an anonymous call that the First Family would arrive in about 20 minutes.
But there were earlier signs something unusual was going on.
As Kruse was leaving, Nix noticed law-enforcement officers breaking into a moving van at an auto-repair shop across the street. And Friday night, general manager Justin Kennedy – Nix’s nephew – met someone at a local bar who said he was a White House cook.
Soon after the call, the neighborhood was blanketed with state troopers, police, Secret Service officers and “scary-looking” snipers, Nix said. When the Obama family showed up, the “cook” stayed in the kitchen with the Secret Service, making sure no one tampered with the President’s shrimp po-boy sandwich, turkey and alligator gumbo and a takeout order of bread pudding with rum sauce.
Kruse made it back to pose for pictures with her fiancé and the President and First Lady, who offered their congratulations on the couple’s engagement.
The Parkway Bakery opened in 1911 as a sandwich shop and bakery. Nix bought it in the mid-1990s when he lived next door. The previous owners, the Timothy family, had bought it from the original owner in 1922. A flood in the mid-1980s damaged the bread ovens, putting an end to the bakery operation. “The name is what carried me through,” Nix says.
