Carondelet Diner Now Open Under New Ownership

When Sue Stewart and Tiffany Cotton found a vacant diner tucked away in an industrial area east of Broadway (the Carondelet Diner), they knew they’d found a place for the little restaurant they’d dreamt of opening.

“I always wanted to open a place for good home-cooked food,” Sue Stewart said. “Tiffany grew up two doors down from me, without her mama, and she was like a daughter to me. Over the years, that changed and we became friends, so opening this diner together? It’s a dream come true for us.”

Both Stewart and Cotton had restaurant experience before opening the diner. Stewart managed an old-style Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant for 12 years. Cotton worked in big and small cafes. Together, they’ve planned a menu, good specials and promotions that have kept crowds coming through the door. They’ve only been open two months, but they’ve already established a healthy breakfast business and a tolerably good lunch crowd.

“We’re working on our dinner crowd on week nights,” Stewart said. “We’ve got fish fry Fridays, barbecue on Saturday and fried chicken Sundays that keep the place full on weekends, but Mondays and Tuesdays, it’s slow.”

Slow translates to ‘speed it up’ for the two determined owners. They instituted a highly successful Lebanese lunch and dinner that kept the wait staff hopping. They offered home-cooked kibbe, stuffed grape leaves, cabbage rolls, string beans and rice, baklava, Lebanese flat breads and more. They nearly sold out.

“We went home with a little pan of leftovers,” Stewart said. “People ate our dinner plates here, then they ordered carry-outs of nearly everything. My sister-in-law Philomena Arnowitz and her friend Debbie Wahby did all the cooking so we don’t do this dinner every week. It was so successful we’re planning another for the third Monday in July, the 21^st.”

Throughout the week, breakfast, served all day, tops the list of customer favorites (sausage and eggs, breakfast burritos; ham and cheese omelet, pancakes). The turkey club comes in a close second. The stacked-high sandwich features Kenrick’s smoked turkey breast on Fazio’s bread. Specials like chicken-and-dumplings, meat loaf and stuffed peppers, all made from scratch, often sell out before 2 pm.

“People really love our greasy-spoon hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and chili,” Stewart said. “Monday through Friday, we’re starting a happy hour from 2 to 5 [pm] selling cheeseburgers for $1.50. We’re hoping it will bring customers through the door during our slow times.”

Fridays, the fryer goes into overdrive as the kitchen crew knocks out jack salmon, catfish, cod and hush puppies for lunch and dinner. Generous portions arrive with tartar sauce or cocktail sauce and your choice of classic sides.

Barbecue Saturdays the action happens mostly at the pit. Ribs and tender pork steaks from Kenrick’s Meat Market, grilled, smoked and slathered with locally made Ronnie’s barbecue sauce top the bill of fare. Bill’s bodacious hot dogs wrap up the bbq offerings. An all-beef Kenrick’s hot dog wrapped in bacon, grilled to a good char, rests on a toasted bun. The chef tops the dog with barbecued baked beans and coleslaw. That’s bodacious all right.

Sundays, the diner kitchen pumps out fried chicken dinners all afternoon. Half-chickens are hand-breaded in a floury mix with secret spices, dropped into exquisitely hot oil and fried in an open fry-basket until they are golden brown. The dinners come with a side of homemade mashed potatoes, a vegetable and bread.

Stewart knows a jaunt through the dining room on a crowded Sunday carrying the homemade chocolate cream pies, apple pie or pineapple upside down cake results in a sell-out. “I make sure to time that walk right,” she says. “We offer dessert specials, too, but the pies are our best sellers.”

If you go, the location is so out of the way you might think you’re lost. East Davis Street runs nearly to the Mississippi River. The neighborhood is mixed housing and industrial sites and the little restaurant sneaks up on the left with little warning. There’s a small lot and on-street parking. The address is on East Davis, but the entrance is on Reilly Street.

The restaurant was open under different management a few years ago. The new owners chose to keep the old moniker.

“We decided to keep the name ‘Carondelet Diner’ because the signs were all in place. The previous business owners had been gone for a year and a half, so we opened with the same name,” Stewart said. “It caused a little confusion at first, but we’re grateful they ran a place the neighborhood liked and remembered. If you offer good quality food at good prices, people will come.”

Carondelet Diner

321 E. Davis

(314) 733-3470

Hours: 6 am - 7 pm daily

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