Pontchartrain Hotel’s Silver Whistle Cafe was a politico hub | Blake Pontchartrain | Gambit Weekly

Hey Blake,

During Mardi Gras, we enjoyed breakfast at the Pontchartrain Hotel’s Silver Whistle Café. I know it’s always been famous for its blueberry muffins. Where did its name come from and is it as old as the hotel itself?

Dear reader,

Although the Pontchartrain Hotel opened on St. Charles Avenue in 1927, the heyday of its Silver Whistle coffee shop and café began in the 1950s.

A 1953 Tommy Griffin column in the New Orleans Item explained that the café had a Broadway connection. It was “named after a play in which Jose Ferrer, onetime guest of the house, once starred,” Griffin wrote. Ferrer was a…