re: So Mr Bs is out for rehearsal dinner. Why the high minimums? Any ideas?

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Not sure who in the world has 80 people at a pre-wedding dinner though.

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We had 84 at ours.

Call Muriel's about the plain old reservation and table d'hote menu and see what happens with that.

not all that close to Bourbon Orleans, but Herbsaint would be great for this.

Agree on Herbsaint. I was going to suggest it, but since he wants to be within walking distance of the Bourbon Orleans, he ruled out some other options.

An option that you might consider is Mandina's. It has a private room, though I don't know the size, but there's also an additional area separate from the restaurant that they might use for larger groups. The party menu is pretty darn reasonable. Your group could take the Canal streetcar to get there and back. Another idea for you, though you'd have to walk to Canal St.

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I don't think I've been to one that wasn't at least that large. All of our family's rehearsal dinners have been larger that that by the time you have people in the wedding, their dates and family on both sides.

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Yea, 16 in the wedding party, their dates, their parents, and our family got to 100 invites in about 3 min.

If Mandina's isn't more casual than you want, give them a call or take a look at the menus and prices on the website.

Definitely call Herbsait and you might even check out Cuchon and a few others suggested earlier.

Just bumping the thread to give out some more info i received. Basically, we picked what we thought was a great weekend to get married that ended up being a bad one with Tulane's graduation. That being said the people at Herbsaint got back in touch and said they were higher than normal b/c of it being a busy weekend for them. First email said 4k minimum, then i received another one a couple minutes later with apologies that the minimum was actually $6000! I asked if we could just reserve seats and again I was told there was no guarantee we would be next to each other......
So, I'm probably going with one of the Besh places (Domenica, Luke or Borgne) as August was already booked. Or the other option is GW Fins as of now. Luke and Borgne have $1000 mins btw. Oh and Tujagues is also an option.

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You should have asked us before you picked the date

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No shite huh!
Figured with Luke it should run us right at and or under $2000. So, just under $100 a head and thats food (3 course) and drinks. It will be cool, a little more laid back and will hammer some of the house brews....

I went to Luke last Sunday after the Saints game. The service was quite good except for they brought out entrees out about 5 minutes after our apps. That was pretty annoying, but more of a kitchen mistake than a server mistake. The two young ladies that waited on us were very good.

Food was decent .. some hits, some misses.

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New guy seems to care about the restaurant after Nik's scathing post about the awful service way back when and I recall that you weren't all that high on the place after I recommended about a year or so ago. I'd get that guy involved. He came through and Nik said there was a world of difference when she returned. He didn't know it was her until the meal was over

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Yeh... definitely had a problem with them. food was great, but the don't give a shite attitude from the bartenders and my waitress put a fowl taste in my mouth. I was definitely part of that roast of Luke
That being said I kept up with and read reviews and I'm okay with going back. The girl that we are dealing with is really nice and went out of her way, she says in charge of handling the stuff for all of the Besh places. Gris should I ask for the manager of the place after we eat? Or just that I read about them of the F&D board on TD? Oh and yeh we are booked with them.