John T. Brennan
Submitted by N.O.V.A. July 2005
Times Picayune 	08-29-1998


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John T. Brennan, a co-owner of Commanders Palace restaurant who also once ran a
thriving business supplying produce to New Orleans restaurants, died Wednesday of
a blood clot at Memorial Medical Center. He was 78.

The brother and father of restaurateurs, Mr. Brennan was regarded as one of the
most self-effacing of the family members who have run Commanders Palace since the
early 1970s.

He was a true gentleman, Ella Brennan said of her brother. He was from a different
era. He would always put other people first. He tried to make other people
comfortable.

But Mr. Brennan also was a shrewd businessman. Besides helping run Commanders
Palace, he and his father-in-law, Ralph Lally, prospered by selling vegetables to
other restaurants. They supplied everybody in the city, Ella Brennan said.

They launched Brennan Pre-Pared Potatoes to supply restaurants tired of peeling
and chopping their own potatoes, said Lewis Smith, who joined the company a
quarter-century ago.

At its peak, the business on South Gayoso Street went through enough potatoes in a
week to fill two railroad cars, Smith said.

Mr. Brennan patented a machine that peeled the potato and cut it so it could be
ready for use as French fries, shoestring potatoes or boxlike Brabant potatoes.

As the industry changed, the business diversified, moving into products such as
frozen foods and canned tomatoes.

Ella Brennan said the supply business appealed to her brother because his children
were growing up and he wanted to spend evening hours with them, not at a
restaurant.

In the late 1980s, Mr. Brennan sold the company to P.A. Menard Inc.

He took Smith, who had risen to general manager, to Commanders Palace, where Smith
now is in charge of purchasing. He taught me the food-distribution business,
adopted me as a family member and taught me a lot of things that a father would
teach a son, Smith said.

Mr. Brennans brother, Owen Brennan Sr., established the family restaurant empire,
which had Brennans on Royal Street as its flagship. He died in 1955.

After a family split in the early 1970s, Owen Brennans widow, Maude Brennan,
stayed at the restaurant, along with her sons Jimmy, Ted and Owen Jr., known as
Pip.

John Brennan and his other siblings -- Adelaide, Ella, Dick and Dotty -- took over
Commanders Palace, which they transformed from a fusty establishment into a lively
outpost for regional cuisine that has won national awards and has become a
training institute for celebrated chefs such as Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse,
Frank Brigtsen and Jamie Shannon.

That side of the family has since added Mr. Bs, the Palace Cafe and Bacco to its
holdings. Two of John Brennans children, Ralph and Cindy Brennan, oversee Bacco
and Mr. Bs; a daughter, Lally, is a managing partner at Commanders Palace. Ralph
Brennan also operates the Red Fish Grill.

Mr. Brennan graduated from Alcee Fortier High School and attended Louisiana State
University. He was a naval aviator in World War II and taught instrument flying.

He was a member of the Order of St. Lazarus. An avid golfer, he was a former
president of Metairie Country Club.

Survivors include his wife, Claire Lally Brennan; two sons, Ralph Owen and Thomas
John Brennan; two daughters, Lally Brennan and Cynthia Brennan Davis; a brother,
Dick Brennan; two sisters, Ella and Dotty Brennan; and seven grandchildren.

A Mass was said Friday at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home. Burial was in Metairie
Cemetery.