NEW ORLEANS — The busiest meal of the day is still breakfast, which for many customers still begins with a cocktail and ends with dessert. At tableside trolleys inside the many dining rooms, bananas still go up in flames every few minutes. The stucco facade on Royal Street in the French Quarter is still pink, although the paint manufacturer prefers to call it Tomato Cream Sauce. (The trim color is Mayonnaise.)

At a glance, Brennan’s seems to be rolling along just as it has since it was founded in 1946. Over the last two years, though, the restaurant has been the subject of a foreclosure, a bankruptcy and a visit by the New Orleans Police Department, called in to pacify a shareholders meeting. Brennans inveighed against Brennans. Brennans sued Brennans. The restaurant was sold off in pieces: the building for $6.85 million, the name and other accouterments for $3 million. An estimated $20 million more was poured into fixing up the 18th-century structure and building new kitchens and dining rooms.

When the pieces were put back together, Brennan’s was in the hands of a new Brennan from another branch of the family, Ralph Brennan, and the kitchen was turned over to a new chef, Slade Rushing. Since reopening the restaurant in November, the two have tried to keep many Brennan’s traditions alive. At the same time, they live in the modern world. Mr. Rushing spent the last seven years as chef of MiLa here, and Mr. Brennan runs six other restaurants. They agree that Brennan’s won’t survive if they can’t give it two things it hasn’t had in recent years: a reputation for good food, and the local following that goes with it.

It had both in the early days, when Owen Brennan started the business, and his sister Ella helped manage it. To stand out from its more established competitors, Brennan’s began to specialize in breakfast. It did this by encouraging diners, starting as early as 8 a.m., to pack more courses, more sugar, more fat and more cocktails into the morning meal than most Americans consumed in an entire day. One might begin with a glass of brandy milk punch as an eye-opener and end with bananas Foster, finished with a huge shot of flaming rum. This was nominally dessert, although in New Orleans, the line between drinking and everything else is often a blurred one.