“Nobody ever robs restaurants,” Tim Roth’s lowlife stick-up man famously wonders in the opening of “Pulp Fiction,” citing the lack of security, disinterested and/or undocumented employees reluctant to play hero, and the sheer novelty of the prospect. “Why not? . . . A lot of people come to restaurants.” And, moments later, he puts his newfound plan into action.

It’s logic that may have appealed to armed assailants who robbed an upscale restaurant in New Orleans this week – and, though police said the crimes were not necessarily related, those who took down two other tony eateries in a city that continues to struggle after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina a decade ago.

“It’s bringing people to their knees,” John “Chappy” Chapman, whose Chappy’s Restaurant has not been knocked over, but is in the same area, said as the Associated Press noted.

The crime wave began last month at Patois, billed on its Web site as a “quaint, romantic, neighborhood restaurant featur[ing] classic French cuisine with a patois, or local accent.” With roasted pheasant breast and confit leg – with sunchoke puree, cippolini onions, roasted baby carrots and a spiced foie gras emulsion – on offer for $30 in a city where food is a religion, it’s clear: This joint, opened in 2007, isn’t McDonalds.

“The rabbit was incredibly tender, cooked perfectly, and the flavor of the boudin and the skin rounded it out,” one reviewer wrote on Yelp, where the restaurant has four stars. Another: “Everything from mussels and fries to salads to grits and grillades to chicken paillard.”

But, on Aug. 20, three masked gunmen burst into this rarefied atmosphere. They held staff in the kitchen while they ransacked the register and took diner’s wallets, purses and cellphones.

“We all thought it was a joke at first,” Lorenzo Reef, general manager at Patois, told the Times-Picayune.

It was not. “Get on the –ing floor,” Reef recalled one of the men saying. “Do you think this is a joke?”

New Orleans police called the robbery “an absolutely brazen act.” But Patois co-owner Leon Touzet, who had a gun held to his head during the incident, was unimpressed.

“They were definitely amateurs,” Touzet said. “This was not ‘Ocean’s Eleven.'”

Next up was Atchafalaya Restaurant, less than three miles from Patois and one of the “10 Best Urban Brunch Spots in the U.S.,” according to the Huffington Post. The restaurant, opened in 2008, offers its signature “Eggs Atchafalaya” for $19 – and fruit and granola for $9.

However, on Sept. 24, two masked gunman appeared to repeat the scene at Patois last month. Late that night, executive chef Chris Lynch spotted the men outside and told the few remaining patrons to pocket their rings. When he tried to lock the front door, the gunmen kicked it down.

“If you saw the Patois video, it was eerily similar,” Lynch told the Times-Picayune.

Welcome to New Orleans, some said.

“This is just life in the Big Easy, unfortunately,” Atchafalaya owner Tony Tocco said. Some insisted the neighborhood was safe. Tocco didn’t seem so sure. His advice: “Be wary, be safe, double up your efforts.”

Just four days later, these words would prove prophetic. Late Monday, three masked, armed men robbed Monkey Hill Bar, billed as an “uptown neighborhood bar” opened in the wake of Katrina “excelling in martinis, wine, and signature cocktails for the end of the day.” Yelp reviewers noted “lots of good-looking people, a reasonably diverse crowd, a very nice shuffleboard table (!!!!), pool table in the back (!!), some comfy-looking leather sofas, and an intriguing menu” – all offered in a “quieter area.”

Three blocks from where three men robbed Patois in August, similar-looked assailants went through the same routine, robbing the bar and its patrons.

“I knew it was a matter of time,” Johnny Vodanovich, Monkey Hill’s owner, said.

After this third crime, officialdom was out in full force. At a news conference, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, D, appeared with a U.S. attorney, who said federal resources were available to fight the crime wave. The reward on offer for information was upped to $30,000, and Landrieu stressed unity.

“The way you make the city safe is that everybody wraps their arms around each other,” he said. “Pointing fingers at each other, blaming each other, panicking as opposed to being appropriately afraid, are not the right ways to solve this problem. We will work our way out of this. This is not the first time this happened in the city of New Orleans, and unfortunately will not be the last.”

But three robberies at upscale locations opened after Hurricane Katrina in a city in the middle of a crime wave with what some say is an understaffed police force isn’t the narrative anyone wants ten years after the great deluge.

“Because New Orleans is such a beloved town for food and specifically a destination for food tourism it is imperative that these individuals are apprehended as quickly as possible to prevent this from happening again,” said Wendy Waren, a spokesman for the Louisiana Restaurant Association, as the Gambit reported.

Monkey Hill’s owner seemed to invoke the specter of terrorism. He was sure to open the day after the robbery.

“If you give into it,” Vodanovich said, “they win.”

Some, meanwhile, wondered whether New Orleans has been reborn at all.

“We thought this was the right area,” one new resident who lives near Monkey Hill told the Times-Picayune. “I’m not so sure anymore.”