Shooting at historic New Orleans restaurant leaves one dead, several injured

Four people were shot Friday night, and one was killed, at a historic New Orleans restaurant, just weeks after the city’s busy Mardi Gras season began.

The scene of the shooting, Dooky Chase’s, is a staple of the city’s Treme neighborhood, a nationally renowned culinary landmark with deep ties to its black community. Civil rights leaders have gathered at the restaurant for decades, and in recent years, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both dined there while in office. It was long run by Leah Chase, a member of New Orleans restaurateur royalty who died in 2019.

Authorities said the restaurant itself was not the target of the shooting, which took place Friday around 8 p.m. The shooter instead chased a person into the establishment, firing several shots that struck bystanders before fleeing the scene. One person was killed and police continue to search for the shooter.

“The person who was the target simply ran into the restaurant, where he collapsed, and unfortunately the attacker continued to shoot, so innocent bystanders who were customers were hit,” New Orleans Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick said at a news conference Friday evening.

About an hour after the shooting, yellow police tape was spread across the front door of Dooky Chase, across two lanes of adjacent Orleans Avenue and in the median. A dozen police cars blocked part of the street. The surrounding residential neighborhood was silent as reporters and passersby huddled in the cold.

After the attack, the gunman initially left the scene, but returned briefly before fleeing again, Ms Kirkpatrick said. Authorities are now asking local residents to check doorbell cameras and provide any information that could help with the search.

By Saturday afternoon, authorities had doubled the reward for information leading to the shooter’s capture to $5,000, the Times-Picayune/NOLA.com reported.

“In the 85 years that this restaurant has been here, there has never been an incident like this,” the city’s new mayor, Helena Moreno, told reporters at the news conference. “This was a very targeted event towards one person.”

The Treme neighborhood is a bastion of black and Creole culture, and was the scene of an eponymous HBO series created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer. The restaurant is a short walk from the iconic French Quarter, where Bourbon Street — the site of a bombing that killed 14 people a year ago — was busy with tourists.

The shooting occurred less than two weeks after the start of the Mardi Gras season, the city’s biggest tourist attraction of the year, which runs until February 17. It also comes as the National Guard remains deployed in the city and a month after President Trump sent federal agents to sweep the city in an immigration crackdown.