Sex Among the Armoires

A roomful of Friday-night diners at The Brownstone [2736 Virginia, (713)520-5666] was recently subjected (or treated?) to an astounding display of steamy live sex, staged by a fortysomething couple said to be celebrating their wedding anniversary.

It’s hard to picture a less likely setting for lewdness than the Brownstone, an ultraconservative, antiques-stuffed monument to Victoriana if ever there was one. But in clear view of dozens of customers, including several teenage prom parties, the couple successfully completed coitus and oral sex, then enjoyed a leisurely cigarette on the fully windowed patio at the front of the restaurant.

“It was almost like it was staged,” says June Neidell, who was dining with her husband, geophysicist Norman Neidell, and another couple at the time. “Maybe they were acting out a fantasy of some sort. I think they enjoyed that we were all forced to watch. They enjoyed tormenting us.”

The couple, whom Neidell describes in astonishment as attractive and well dressed, warmed up with a bottle of wine and “grossly inappropriate behavior” at their table in the main dining room of the restaurant, reports Neidell, who was seated ringside at the next table. “The woman kept jumping up and doing this seductive dance, then she would literally bump and grind on the man’s lap. Whenever he went to the restroom, she’d lick her lips, leer at us all and flash the teenage boys — she wasn’t wearing underwear. Then they went outside and actually did it.”

The Neidells were horrified that the couple’s performance, indoors and out, lasted for almost three hours without interruption from management despite repeated complaints from diners. “The manager just laughed,” says Neidell. “He told us the couple got married at the Brownstone five years ago and that they come back every year to celebrate the occasion. I think he made that story up.”

The management of the Brownstone later apologized in writing to the Neidells, explaining that though its staff is well trained in culinary matters, it apparently lacks the sort of experience needed for customer lust control. (Both the Brownstone’s owner and manager declined to return our repeated telephone calls.) “Well, their silence was consent, as my mother always said,” fumes Neidell.

It’s interesting to note that perhaps not all the customers were scandalized. Neidell reports that a woman seated nearby with her two teenage sons actually applauded the patio performance, and the valet parking staff appeared greatly entertained. The teenagers, though, were apparently embarrassed by the close-up preview of “over-the-hill” sex. “They made disgusted faces,” says Neidell, “and said it was gross.”

The Big Oops
The westernmost Crescent City Beignet location [1818 Fountainview, (713)334-4414] will be closed for about a month because of — strangely enough — a car crash.

Around noon on Friday, May 21, a woman driver described by witnesses as a “little old lady” mistook her accelerator pedal for her brake and slammed through the front of the store at high speed. “And as if that weren’t enough,” said a store employee, “once she smashed through the front, she made a hard left turn inside and wiped out our whole serving line.” The woman’s car was finally halted by the store’s outer concrete retaining wall, its wheels still spinning madly.

“I really shouldn’t tell you any more than that,” said the employee, who asked not to be named in print. “We got the whole accident on videotape, and the lawyers are looking at it now. The store is completely destroyed, and repairs will take us at least a month. Fortunately, nobody was hurt in all that mess — can you imagine?