Bars reopening in New Orleans. Will tourists come?

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Bar owners in New Orleans prepared for a soft opening, and an uncertain one, as they prepared to let customers in Saturday for the first time in months. Capacity is limited to 25 percent, live music remains prohibited, and nobody knows how many tourists will show on Bourbon Street in the age of COVID-19.

Pam Fortner, owner of six French Quarter venues, is opening only two of them, both on Bourbon, where the customary blocks-long frat party atmosphere ended in an abrupt shutdown in mid-March.

Now, she's not sure what to expect. She sat at a sidewalk table at Royal and St. Ann on Thursday, eating a Caesar salad and deriving hope from the occasional out-of-state license plate she saw amid sparse traffic.

“I think Saturday will be busy,” she said in an interview.

Cherie Boos, manager of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, in an authentically rustic, creaky floored 18th-century Creole cottage, said she's hoping locals will help keep the bar financially afloat as Bourbon Street revives. But she adds, “We’re hoping that, you know, we can start generating some tourists in the city, too, now that the bars are going to be open.”

Bourbon Street, which had the ambiance of an empty movie set in April, has experienced a slow re-awakening in recent weeks. Dine-in restaurants have been allowed to reopen at 25% capacity, as have bars with food permits. Still, traffic has been slow and plywood covered numerous tavern windows until Cantrell announced the latest easing of restrictions in a city that, in the spring, had become an international hot spot for COVID-19.

Even as they announced the reopenings on Tuesday, city officials admitted they were concerned about a possible recurrence.

“Oh, I'm worried. I am worried,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell said at a news...