The restaurant’s second cookbook is an invitation into a family experience.
Anthony and Gail’s son, John, shares his parents’ lives through recipes,
anecdotes, photos, and letters of support they received after Hurricane
Katrina.
In business for more than eighty years, Uglesich’s began as a po-boy shop in
1924. The lunch counter was handed down to a second generation, Anthony
Uglesich, son of the Yugoslavian founder. Anthony added a new chef, his wife
Gail, and new recipes, excluding the luxuries of coffee and dessert. Their
devoted patrons enjoyed a menu consisting mostly of seafood dishes.
Beginning with an egg sandwich for five cents, the restaurant has since
taken on a life of its own. It closed on weekends and for summer vacation
while the owners experimented at home or took a break. It didn’t accept
reservations or credit cards. Far from being the typical sleepy, small-time
mom-and-pop, the restaurant and everyone in it moved nonstop from open to
close, and it gained a national reputation.
The restaurant belonged to the family that shares its name, but it also belonged
to the customers, consisting mostly of regulars and some frequent tourists
who formed lines around the block to get in. Other guests have included
Emeril Lagasse and Martha Stewart, who both featured the restaurant on their
respective television programs. Newcomers may have been put off by the small
size (only ten tables), or the exterior, desperately in need of new paint,
but that didn’t stop the limos from pulling up outside.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Uglesich is the grandson of Uglesich’s
Restaurant founder Sam Uglesich, and he is the son of the previous owners,
Gail and Anthony. He and his sisters work for a family business, National
Fence Corporation. John is the author of Uglesich’s Restaurant
Cookbook, also published by Pelican.
COOKING WITH THE UGLESICHES
By John Uglesich
192 pp. 8 x 9¼
35 color photos Index
ISBN: 1-58980-551-8
EAN: 978-1-58980-551-4