Four people were shot on Friday night, and one was killed, at a historic restaurant in New Orleans only weeks into the city’s busy Mardi Gras season.
The site of the shooting, Dooky Chase’s, is a fixture in the city’s Treme neighborhood, a nationally known culinary landmark with deep ties to its Black community. Civil rights leaders convened at the restaurant for decades, and in more recent years, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both dined there while in office. It was long helmed 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 around 8 p.m. on Friday. Rather, the gunman pursued 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 gunman.
“The person who was the target simply ran into the restaurant, where he collapsed, and unfortunately the perpetrator continued to shoot, so innocent bystanders who were patrons were actually hit,” New Orleans police superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said at a news conference on Friday night.
About an hour after the shooting, yellow police tape was draped from Dooky Chase’s front door, across two lanes of the adjacent Orleans Avenue and into the median. Roughly a dozen police cars blocked off part of the street. The surrounding residential neighborhood was hushed while reporters and bystanders huddled in the cold.
After the attack, the shooter initially left the scene but briefly returned before fleeing again, Ms. Kirkpatrick said. Authorities are now asking local residents to check doorbell cameras and come forward with any information that could aid in the search.
By Saturday afternoon, authorities had doubled a reward for information leading to the shooter’s capture to $5,000, The Times-Picayune/NOLA.com reported.
“During the 85 years that this restaurant has been established here, there’s never been any kind of incident like this,” the city’s newly inaugurated mayor, Helena Moreno, told reporters at the news conference. “This was a very targeted event toward one person.”
The Treme neighborhood is a bastion of Black and Créole culture, and was the setting of an eponymous HBO series created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer. The restaurant sits within walking distance of the iconic French Quarter, where Bourbon Street — the site of a terrorist attack that killed 14 people a year ago — was busy with tourists.
The shooting occurred less than two weeks into Mardi Gras season, the city’s biggest tourist draw of the year, which will continue through Feb. 17. It also comes as the National Guard remains deployed to the city, and a month after President Trump sent federal agents to sweep the city in an immigration enforcement crackdown.
Chris Hippensteel is a reporter covering breaking news and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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