“We’re finally getting our step back in the city and it’s taken a lot of hard work, a lot of people’s effort and this (will be) a wonderful boost to us, needless to say what it would do for our economy,” said celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, who has three restaurants in the city.

In Algiers Point, a riverfront neighborhood of historic, brightly colored shotgun houses adorned with Victorian detail, cafe owner Hillery Moise said she’d been on “pins and needles” waiting for the Super Bowl announcement.

“It matters because people need to come to New Orleans and see how much we are back,” she said. “They will understand why in a few short years people have come back and rebuilt — the resilience of the people, which is mainly because of their love for the city and the people in it.”

Across town in suburban Metairie, former longtime Saints kicker Morten Andersen, who happened to be in town for his election to the New Orleans Saints Hall of Fame, asserted that the NFL “had to” bring the Super Bowl back the city where he spent “the greatest 13 years of my life.”

“No matter what’s thrown at this city, people still have a smile on their face and a sense of humor and to me there’s no other place in the world that would handle situations the way people in New Orleans do,” said Andersen, a native of Denmark who came to America for college and kicked in the NFL for 25 seasons. “Their ’joie de vivre,’ their love of life is so evident in everything here, whether it’s food, music, culture — football, which is part of the culture.

“Everything’s done with passion here. I think that’s maybe what other cities in America are missing that they could learn from New Orleans, is the way to live.”

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