As recently as five years ago, the Louisiana restaurants open on Christmas Day were almost exclusively hotel restaurants and those in casinos, says Louisiana Restaurant Association Director of Communications Erica Burns. This year, a handful of stand-alone restaurants will also be open on Christmas Day in Baton Rouge, in addition to those in hotels and casinos. Burns says it’s “increasingly popular” for restaurants to remain open during the holiday, speculating that it’s a response to pent-up demand.
“Some people don’t want to deal with the hassle of cooking and cleaning, especially if it’s only for two or three people. Other times, they’re traveling,” she says of those who would prefer to go to a restaurant on Christmas or who have few other options. “Sometimes, they’d simply prefer to dine out for the holidays, and another one we’ve heard is that they don’t have the space to host a big holiday gathering.”
For restaurateurs, staying open on Christmas can be a win-win situation. Growing demand plus little competition undoubtedly yields a profit, and some see it as a way to give back to the community during the holidays.
“I consider it community service,” says Thomas Sandeman, CEO of Baton Rouge-based Piccadilly Restaurants, which is opening 27 of its 60 restaurants on Wednesday for the fifth consecutive Christmas—three of them in the Baton Rouge area.
“I’ve never been thanked so many times in one restaurant visit,” Sandeman says of the response from typical holiday customers, which include families who can’t go home for the holidays, senior citizens and plant workers. “Many of the plants here in Baton Rouge are working on Christmas Day, so they actually send trucks to pick up meals for workers all the way up and down the Mississippi.”
Of course, for a restaurant to stay open on Christmas, it must ask some workers to spend the holiday on the clock—or order them to do so. In the case of Piccadilly, Sandeman says the company is able to staff the restaurants it keeps open during Christmas with workers who volunteer—most of them enticed by the extra wages offered.
