The restaurant: It happened that day

Opening day wasn't the happy crush they had hoped, but the owners of a new restaurant find that those first customers have since become loyal patrons and friends.

By DAVE SCHEIBER

© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 11, 2001

[Times photo: Jim Damaske] Kevin Blankenship co-owns Boudreaux’s restaurant in Clearwater.

CLEARWATER -- On a quiet morning two months ago, Kevin Blankenship and Tom Stanton were about to open the doors to their dream.

After years of experience in the restaurant business, they were hours away from opening up a place of their own -- a New Orleans-themed establishment on U.S. 19 N they named Boudreaux's.

All summer long, they worked feverishly to renovate a building that had once housed an Italian restaurant.

They had settled on a day that seemed nondescript. A Tuesday. The date: Sept. 11.

"For three months, we painted, scraped, cleaned, carpeted and just did everything you can think of to get the building to where we would consider it a nice, casual place," Blankenship says. "With every little project we completed, our excitement just grew."

Then, in a heartbeat, it vanished amid the terrorist attacks. Everything they had worked so hard to create was suddenly in jeopardy, overshadowed by a national nightmare that made a restaurant opening seem woefully insignificant.

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Only two days before, they had thrown a splashy VIP party for clients and friends inside the spacious building filled with Mardi Gras decor, games, TV sets above the bar and a deejay on stage spinning rock music. They were so sure of a big first-day crowd that they chose not even to advertise the opening.

"We were just totally pumped," Blankenship says. "I couldn't even sleep that night."

Blankenship, 29, and Stanton, 44, arrived at work early Monday morning. Food and liquor trucks arrived through the day. The newly trained staff went through final preparations. That evening, Blankenship handled last-second details -- a broken pipe, a small roof leak, a malfunctioning cooler.

They stayed until 3 a.m., slept restlessly at home and returned around 8 a.m. Tuesday. Barely an hour later, as Blankenship and Stanton worked in the kitchen, one of their staff burst in and yelled, "Somebody's bombed New York!"

Neither took it seriously at first. But as the tragedy unfolded, they agonized over whether to close for the day or stay open. When the twin towers collapsed, "everybody just broke down," Blankenship says. After gathering their composure, the owners told the staff to go home to their families, wondering if their business could survive the devastating events.

Just then, the first few customers knocked on the door. They wanted to watch news coverage on TV.

So the owners and a few employees stayed. That night, more customers arrived -- all wanting a place to talk, to watch TV together, to share emotions.

In the shock waves, something special had begun to happen at Boudreaux's. The regulars from that first day and week, feeling bonded by the tragedy, kept showing up. And they helped the restaurant stay afloat during lean weeks that followed.

"Without them," Blankenship says, "we would have gone out of business very quickly."

Before Sept. 11, Blankenship and Stanton planned to expand Boudreaux's, located just north of Countryside Mall, into a chain. Now, they say they want only to focus on making it an affordable, fun spot where a special chemistry has been forged from the disaster. Business has been improving, they say, and prospects are good.

"I had never been close to customers before," Blankenship. "But now, I feel like I know them. I want to know if they're doing okay. We had aspirations of making lots of money, and making lots of places. But I never thought I could be this happy."

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