Thomas "Uptown T" Stewart
Pascal's Manale, the stalwart Uptown restaurant, is an icon going as strong as ever at 112 years old and Thomas "Uptown T" Stewart is an essential part of its success.
Frank Manale opened his namesake restaurant, Manale's, in a former grocery store in 1913. Frank's nephew, Pascal Radosta, helmed it beginning in 1937. He later changed the restaurant's name to Pascal's Manale Restaurant. Generations of the family worked at the restaurant until it was famously sold to auto dealership owner Ray Brandt in 2019 just days before his passing.
Pascal's Manale Restaurant was sold to a third local family in 2023. Brother and sister legacy restaurateurs Dickie Brennan and Lauren Brennan Brower were a natural choice to captain the purely New Orleans restaurant as Dickie Brennan & Co. also owns such restaurants as Bourbon House and Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse. The Brennans are longtime customers of their new acquisition and vowed, along with owner Steve Pettus, to keep the historic character of Pascal's Manale intact while performing necessary updates to ensure its longevity.
Walking through the door, it doesn't seem like much has changed in a long time. The dark wood lobby leads to sunlit dining areas, photos from several decades take up most of the walls, and Thomas W. Stewart is behind the standing-only oyster bar, shucking oysters and dispensing philosophy to his enchanted eaters. "They call me Uptown T. The only one. Often imitated, never duplicated. When I say 3D, everybody, step back because they're going to see me—Uptown T. Call me Thomas. Cha cha cha, baby," he expressed, in a matter-of-fact rhythm.
Uptown T's Journey
Thomas found employment and enjoyment at Pascal's Manale 40 years ago, starting off as a dishwasher. His warm demeanor and cold oysters are as much of a fixture as the marble-top bar he currently works from. The horoscope that foretold he would be getting a job soon didn't mention the status he would eventually achieve. He explained, "I used to sit for my mother. She became real sickly and passed away. My sister gave me a thought about finding a job now."
Thomas' friend would take breaks from her job at his home, reading the not-so serious parts of the newspaper. On a Wednesday, she read to him his Aries horoscope. "'You will be coming into a job real soon, sooner than you think,'" he recounted. "The next day was Thursday. I got up and walked from way down there and walked to this restaurant. [I] came in. I knew the maître d'. [I] filled out an application, and he said, 'Come back tomorrow.' [I] got back on Friday, 8 o'clock that morning. [I] sat down [and] waited for about an hour. Then, the manager came and said, 'So when can you start?' I'm like, 'When can you hire me?' He said, 'Do you need to go home for anything?' I said, 'No.' He said, 'Come on with me.' He gave me some gear, brought me in the back, told me what to do, and washed dishes until the crew came in."
Thomas didn't initially have aspirations in the professional kitchen, but he chose to help out when it was needed, learning new skills and seeing what could be possible for him. This willingness to substitute gave him a taste of his current position. "I took the dishwashing job because I was afraid to be a cook. Before you know it, the chef and the line cooks used to ask me to do things, and I started doing it. I advanced into the kitchen area making salads, fry cooking, whatever. About 1987, a guy didn't show up for work. They needed an oyster shucker. I don't know anything about shucking oysters. He brought me up there, showed me a few pointers. I went to whittling with it."
Fascinated by the feeling of accomplishment from opening oysters, Thomas asked to be the restaurant's oyster shucker, but he was denied. He said, "I didn't let that discourage me. I tried and tried. I'm working in salads and pantries and all. I tried and tried to get that job. One day, a guy didn't call in and didn't show up. They needed me to do it. I said, 'I told y'all all I needed was a chance.' I started knocking them out in 1991, and here I am today shucking oysters."
Perfectly Shucking Oysters
It starts with the hands, according to Thomas, and it ends with making a deep connection between him and his happy customers. "My brothers and friends, we used to sneak off and go down on Bourbon Street to the arcade on Royal Street. We used to walk past these restaurants and guys are in the windows shucking oysters. I was fascinated by it. I've always been fascinated by working with your hands. I want you to enjoy that oyster that I'm presenting to you. It's clean. It's refreshing. It's tasty. I don't do it for the speed. I do it for the quality. That becomes a part of liking me. I'm good at what I do, and that's what makes me feel great."
Though a newspaper horoscope predicted Thomas' job at Pascal's Manale, he believes that "you are your own destiny. The more you do it, the best you get at it. Not the better, but the best of your ability of what you want to learn about a skill. I started from scratch. [The] only way you're going to get up that flight of stairs, you've got to walk up that flight of stairs. There's no elevator."
