One of the most eccentric restaurants in New Orleans is closing.
The vegan focused Equestrian Motel, which is neither a motel nor seemingly has anything to do with horses, is throwing in the organic, non-GMO, fair trade certified hemp towel.
The Bywater restaurant, which featured vintage light-bulbs hanging from the ceiling, delicious vegan halal BBQ, and woke servers with English as a second language, has been open for the last six months but filed for bankruptcy earlier this week due to the landlord refusing to accept Chakra stones as payment for rent. The typically vocal vegan restaurant, which will shut its doors within the next few weeks, has surprisingly remained silent about the developments and reportedly sold to a local entrepreneur.
The new ownership comes in with hopes of establishing a state-of-the-art venue for crack selling and crack consuming alike while the crime industry is booming in New Orleans.
“The food (at The Equestrian Motel) was okay but the atmosphere is what really turned me on to the place,” said the location’s new owner and professional crackhead Kenny White.
“Rotting wood, rusty appliances, and exposed pipes — it all really reminded me of the building where I smoked my first rock. Oh, to be young again.”
White plans to remodel the building and hopes to run the sketchiest crack house in New Orleans. Though it may seem a big dream for the ambitious entrepreneur, he believes with the help of his closest junkies anything seems possible, especially when it comes to smoking crack.
Though, the excitement isn’t shared by all New Orleanians.
“I can’t believe the E.M. is shutting down,” said Arlo Mateo, a unicycle mechanic based in Bywater and organizer of Festival Fest.
“Here you have someone trying to open a restaurant and enlighten this city’s culture with progressive ideas only to be shut down. This city is so anti-business I can’t stand it. It’s a textbook example of reverse-gentrification and it makes my blood simmer.”
Despite some opposition, White said he has all the paperwork he needs to move forward.
“The drums are full and ready to burn. New Orleans deserves a better class of crack houses, and I’m going to give it to them. Time to turn and burn, y’all.”
The new Crack House will hold a soft opening to the public later this month, hoping to get as many first-time users in the door as possible. The main attractions will include garbage can fires, stained mattresses, a live petting zoo, and an open floor plan with a large meeting space.