NEW ORLEANS — Keith Chancley, the senior shucker at one of the oldest oyster bars in the French Quarter, leaned against the cold counter during lunch hour with a knife in idle hands and nothing to shuck. Plenty of fat Louisiana shellfish — procured by the hardest means — rested in chopped ice. But nobody wanted them.

“Y’all having oysters today?” Mr. Chancley chimed brightly to several tourists who ambled in to scan the menu at Felix’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar, a family business since the 1940s near the corner of Bourbon and Iberville Streets, crossroads of the tourist universe here

The rest of the story

By SUSAN SAULNY