There is a timeless feel at Casamento’s Restaurant, the tile-clad oyster mecca on Magazine Street that dates to 1919. But time is catching up, and it seems change is ahead.
Among Casamento’s many quirks is an annual summertime closure, which is underway now. Regulars know to check if that summer hiatus has begun before embarking on an oyster outing. But visitors to its website are also seeing some alarming news posted as well.
“We are closed for the summer and will reopen in late September which is looking like our final season,” the message reads. “Hope to see you then!”
The Casamento’s experience begins while waiting in line for a table.
STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD
Third-generation owner C.J. Gerdes confirmed he is indeed considering closing the restaurant permanently at the end of Casamento’s normal season at this time next year. But he also said his plans for the future are not yet definite.
“If I had to say today, then yes, this will be the last season for us,” he said. “But you never know, things could change.”
Why now?
A combination of factors are in play. Gerdes just turned 69 and is eyeing retirement after working at the restaurant since age 14.
“I told myself once I hit 70 next year that’s it,” he said.
He and wife Linda Gerdes both run the restaurant together. They lost their daughter, Natalie Gerdes Hebert, last summer to a heart attack at age 37. She had been the heir apparent to take over Casamento’s.
C.J. Gerdes, the third-generation chef and owner of Casamento’s restaurant, fries a lot of oysters.
STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD
Her twin sister, Nikki Gerdes, who was severely injured in a 2015 car wreck, is not able to take over the business, her father said.
“People say why don’t you wait for your grandson to take over, well he’s 4 years old,” Gerdes said. “I can’t stick around that long.”
Some of Casamento’s employees have worked at the restaurant for decades, and they are getting up in years also. Gerdes said the idea of hiring new staff and essentially starting over is not appealing at this point in his own life.
JuJu Johnson serves an order in the tile-lined dining room at Casamento’s Restaurant.
STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD
Business over the past year was down dramatically, he said, and that’s another contributing factor to his decisionmaking.
One possibility Gerdes is considering is to open Casamento’s in the fall 2026 and then, starting in the fall of 2027, operating only for catering, private dining and possibly takeout, without the full restaurant service.
Another possibility is selling the business to a new operator, but he says that is an option he has not fully explored yet.
History on the half shell
The prospect of a final closure for Casamento’s would mean the end of a small, family-run restaurant with a legendary place in the New Orleans food scene. Only a handful of local restaurants are older, and no other restaurant is quite like it.
‘There aren’t many restaurants around anymore in which the regular customers will sometimes pitch in and wait on tables in order to keep things moving on busy nights. This sometimes happens at Casamento’s but then, there aren’t many restaurants around anymore like Casamento’s.’ (Original caption)
It is a time capsule to an older New Orleans, still a cash-only operation where the vintage register rings up orders that are all about local seafood.
Gerdes’ grandfather, Joe Casamento, an immigrant from the Italian island of Ustica, had the restaurant built just after World War I at 4330 Magazine St. He worked there until he died in 1979 at age 90.
In the land of the po-boy, Casamento’s instead builds its fried seafood “loaf” using thick slices of white bread.
Instead of po-boys, Casamento’s Restaurant serves its famous oyster loaf.
STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD
Oysters have always been the specialty. They’re fried in lard skillets for the oyster loaves and platters, poached in a creamy stew and chargrilled.
At the oyster bar, they’re raked directly from a counter-mounted fridge to the shuckers’ knives to serve raw on the half shell. Gulping down a half dozen or so with an elbow hitched on the oyster bar while waiting for a table to open during a busy lunch has been a time-honored part of a Casamento’s visit for generations.
Closing for now
Even the gleaming tilework all around the dining rooms and extending into the kitchen can bring to mind the interior of an oyster.
Oysters shuckers are front and center in the front dining room at Casamento’s Restaurant in New Orleans.
STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD
Gerdes said his grandfather installed the current tilework in 1949. He closed the restaurant over the course of several months to do the work. These were not coincidentally the summer months because, back in the era when refrigerated transport was not common in the oyster business, the restaurant’s primary ingredient wasn’t at its best anyway.
“So he closed for three months and decided he liked it and that’s been how we run ever since,” Gerdes said.
For now, with Casamento’s temporarily closed for summer as usual, he has a list of work to complete on the building before a planned reopening in late September and whatever the future brings.
Casamento’s Restaurant
4330 Magazine St., closed for summer until late September 2026
