Why I Oughta...

Back at the end of June, I added a coaster (and glass cover) to the #CoasterCollection here on the blog and kind of just glossed over the actual hotel.  Being a fan of old-school hotels, the lobby at the Roosevelt deserves a post of it's own here in my online/travel diary.  Check out the photo above to see the mosiacs, the fixtures and the all around glamour of the place.  They don't build hotels like this any more - in terms of the materials but also the space.  There is so much 'useless' space that isn't in rooms.  The areas around the elevators on the upper floors is generous.  Today? They'd build that space into the rooms.  There are these little weird half-floors that are totally NOT ADA-compliant.   And in keeping with the Waldorf-Atoria tradition of featuring significant clocks in their lobby , the Roosevelt has a beautiful piece called "The Paris Exhibition Clock.  Turns out, despite the clock being made in 1867, it has o...

A double feature:  Coaster #28 and a little lid for a hotel-room glass - both from The Roosevelt in New Orleans.  This place is super old-fashioned and my kind of hotel:  rooms that are weird sized.  Big, odd-shaped spaces near the elevators.  Half-floors with like 4 or 5 stairs.  They'd NEVER build a hotel like this today.  Similar 'old fashioned' hotels in the [ coaster collection ] include the Adolphus in Dallas and The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.   This was my second trip to New Orleans with the first back in 2011 where we made a stop at Central Grocery . 

Central Grocery is a small Italian grocery store in the French Quarter in New Orleans.  I was down there this week for a conference and this was on my 'NOLA Bucket List' as this is the HOME of the original Muffaletta sandwich.  These beauties are stuffed with cheese, salamis and most importantly: olive salad.  I've had plenty of Muffalettas and I don't know if it was because I was eating this one in the store where it all began - but this was the *best* sandwich of it's kind that I've ever had. The store itself isn't much to look at.  It really is a grocery store with canned/jarred products everywhere.  Nat and I had a discussion about this type of place (the sort of local 'food touchstone' that tourists seek out - like Pat's/Gino's in Philadelphia or Uno's in Chicago).  Do you think that they had some great PR person back in the day who got them in travel books (before the web) and then it sort of self-propagated itself?  Or...do you...