He grew up in Raytown. Now celebrities, Beard Awards surround his New Orleans restaurant
At GW Fins — 808 Bienville St., a half-block off Bourbon Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter — servers’ assistants circulate the restaurant carrying trays and tongs, passing out complimentary biscuits to diners.
It’s an idea owner Gary Wollerman picked up decades ago while working for Gilbert/Robinson, the Kansas City restaurant group that gave birth to Houlihan’s, J. Gilbert’s and Bristol Seafood Grill in the second half of the 20th century.
“When we were getting ready to open GW Fins, I remembered how popular the biscuits at Bristol were,” Wollerman said. “I knew I wanted to have something like that. We worked for a long time on perfecting the recipe, and the biscuits have been with us since day one.”
Day one at GW Fins was March 9, 2001. But Wollerman’s journey started well before that — in Raytown. After graduating from Raytown South High School, he attended the University of Kansas, left in 1971 and ended up getting a job at Houlihan’s.
“I was behind the bar the first night Houlihan’s on the Plaza opened to the public,” he said.
He took to the hospitality industry. Wollerman entered into Gilbert/Robinson’s management training program and spent much of the next 20 years moving around the country, opening up restaurants and rising up through Gilbert/Robinson’s corporate ranks.
Wollerman’s been in New Orleans since 1995, when he was hired as vice president and chief operating officer of Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which was based in New Orleans at the time. When the company was sold to a private equity firm in 1999, Wollerman started thinking about opening his own fine-dining seafood spot in the French Quarter.
That can be a daunting undertaking in a place like New Orleans, where a healthy skepticism of outsiders has long lingered in the civic psyche.
“It was a little bit of a risk, yeah,” Wollerman said. “GW Fins is not a typical New Orleans seafood restaurant. We don’t fry our seafood, and we don’t put a bunch of sauces on it. We work with a really high-quality product and prepare it in a way that enhances the natural flavors. I thought visitors would like it. But I didn’t know if locals would.”
Turns out, they did. Twenty-four years after opening, GW Fins is not just regarded as one of the city’s finest restaurants, it’s also a dining destination on unofficial New Orleanian holidays like the Friday lunches before Mardi Gras Day and Halloween.
“Those are always sellouts, and we’re especially proud of that because it reinforces the fact that locals know us and support us,” Wollerman said. “People in New Orleans value tradition. In Dallas or Atlanta, most restaurants like ours would have a six-year shelf life and then have to change concepts. Here, if you open up and do a good job and endear yourself to the city, you can have real longevity.”
Aside from a short-lived GW Fins venture in Charlotte that closed after 15 months, Wollerman’s focus the past quarter-century has been entirely on the one restaurant in the French Quarter.
It is paying off. Last month, GW Fins earned another big accolade as one of 20 restaurants in the U.S. nominated in the 2025 James Beard Awards for Outstanding Restaurant, a national category.
“Total surprise,” Wollerman said of the honor. “Our executive chef, Michael Nelson, has previously consulted the Beards on the subject of food sustainability, and we hosted a dinner years ago at the Beard House. But we found out through the media. It was a very pleasant surprise.”
These days, the restaurant is a family affair. Wollerman’s oldest daughter, Marin, handles accounting and human resources, and his other daughter, Rhegan, works on sales, social media and web development.
“And my wife will be greeting guests at the front desk if you stop in tonight,” he said. “And I’m around mostly daytime. The four of us are all very involved in the restaurant.”
Wollerman maintains close ties to the Kansas City area, having recently purchased a second home in old Leawood. He’s confident about the Chiefs’ Super Bowl three-peat and is looking forward to welcoming their head coach to GW Fins.
“Andy Reid is confirmed for a reservation this week,” Wollerman said. “We have the Eagles staff coming in, too. And I have tentative reservations for Martha Stewart, Paul McCartney. I don’t know for sure if those will happen. But yeah, this could be a good week for stargazing at GW Fins.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
