Two Christmases ago, before the then inexplicably eccentric manager at The Columns Hotel kicked us out because he “Didn’t want to brand The Columns as a Happy Hour location,” we recorded what has become one of the classic episodes of Happy Hour.

Singer-songwriter Lynn Drury, Rabbi Yonah Schiller, and New Orleans’ ultimate renaissance man Andrew Ward sat down with our show’s host Grant Morris. Nobody at the table had anything in common, nobody knew each other or had met before the show started. What happened in the next 60 minutes convinced us we had indeed, with the right mix of guests, stumbled onto a magical format for a show.

This is the 60 minutes that changed it all. That demonstrated how, with a moderate size bar tab and a small table, we could indeed show the world what New Orelanians are really like.