Galatoire's loses a legend - Waiter had worked at local restaurants for 
more than 40 years
Submitted By: 	N.O.V.A March 2006
Source:		Times Picayune 03-16-2006


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There is consensus among Gilbert "Louis" LaFleur's friends and
colleagues that he was happy Saturday night, the evening before he
passed away.

It had been a particularly busy dinner shift at Galatoire's, where
LaFleur had worked as a waiter for much of his adult life. He
carried a bright mood with him into the downstairs dining room,
where a fresh rendition of "Happy Birthday" seemed to erupt every 15
minutes.

I happened to be sitting at the last table he served, a party of 19,
most of them picky food writers from out of town.

"You guys are going to work me to death," he joked at one point.

Before leaving the restaurant, LaFleur told Bryant Sylvester, his
nephew and fellow waiter, that he was going to Manchac the following
day to eat catfish at Middendorf's.

"He told me he'd he see me Tuesday," Sylvester said.

"He was as happy as can be," said David Gooch, a Galatoire's manager
and descendant of restaurant founder Jean Galatoire. "He was singing
and everything."

LaFleur, who was 63, waited tables at Galatoire's for long enough
that no one is exactly sure when he started. Sylvester figures it
was in the early '60s, perhaps the late '50s, that LaFleur first
donned a tuxedo to work the French-Creole restaurant's tile-lined
dining room.

In leaving his job at Arnaud's for Galatoire's, LaFleur joined a
long line of family members, all Cajuns from Ville Platte, as
players on New Orleans' most prominent social stage.

Homer Fontenot, a brother-in-law, and Harold Fontenot, a cousin, are
both current Galatoire's waiters whose tenure at the restaurant is
at least as long as LaFleur's, according to Sylvester. Dorris
Sylvester, Bryant's father, has worked at Galatoire's since 1973.

"They were all farmers," Sylvester said of the Ville Platte crew.
"You could say they left that lifestyle for life in the city."

LaFleur left Galatoire's in the early '70s to go to work at
LeRuth's, the influential French-style restaurant in Gretna that is
generally regarded as the birthplace of oyster-artichoke soup. He
became LeRuth's maitre d' and stayed at the restaurant until its
closing in 1991, at which point he returned to Galatoire's.

He by all accounts loved what he did, getting as much out of his
work as his customers did out of him, particularly on those nights
in the dining room when the tips and spirits were high.

"Nothing put those guys in a better mood than a good table," said
Bradley Black, a former Galatoire's bartender and hostess.

Last Sunday, news spread that LaFleur had died after suffering a
heart attack in his Metairie home, dimming the mood at 209 Bourbon.

"We had some customers that came in asking for him," Gooch said. "I
had to tell them. They were in shock."

Sylvester broke the news to his colleagues. "When I told everybody
at work, everybody was kind of down and out," he said. "It wasn't
the same."

LaFleur is survived by his wife, Dorothy; his children, Christina,
Pam and Kevin; and six grandchildren.