New coffee shop in New Orleans

Entrance to New Orleans City Hall

First of all, we would like to proffer a toast to your continued health and happiness.  That is the how we start business in New Orleans.

I was walking up Bayou Road today, which is the oldest street in the city.  Bayou Road, an old Choctaw portage trail that links Lake Pontchartrain to the the French Quarter, is why New Orleans is located where it is, a city known all over the world against all odds.  There is a new coffee shop opening at the corner of Bayou Road and North Dorgenois Street, two blocks lakeside of our address.

The future Pagoda Cafe

The building used to be one of a chain of Chinese laundries built to look like pagodas.  Try to do that nowadays.  The last Chinese laundry still operating in New Orleans is Q.Lee on Basin Street, just before that street turns into Orleans Avenue under the Claiborne Avenue Overpass.  It is next to Kermit's Speak Easy.   They do good work.  Like Calgon, it's an ancient Creole secret.  

The building has been falling down since Katrina.  It used to be some kind of reggae record store called One Love based on the faded paint job next to the former front door.  It's a beautiful mystery of a place.  They've been restoring the joint for about five months, working every day.  While I was walking the dog this afternoon, I was lucky enough to meet the new owners.

Notice the attention to detail.  This is how signs are painted in New Orleans, by hand, with an distinctive script that can be found from Seal's Class Act Lounge on the corner of Saint Bernard Avenue and North Miro Street, to the back lot behind City Hall that warns people not to park their motor bikes on the sidewalk.

Pagoda Cafe.  Coffe.  Breakfast.  Lunch.

I had a brief chat with the new proprietors of the Pagoda Cafe.  They are going to do a soft opening in about three weeks.  I can't wait.  I can't wait to have a neighborhood coffee shop two blocks away where I can catch up on neighborhood news and meet my neighbors as they go to work or just take a break on their way home.  It is a gem of a spot.  It's in our neighborhood.

"We still need to get some more permits from City Hall," the new entrepreneurs told me.  I feel their pain.  I had to go to City Hall today, myself.  It is a chore that is never a pleasure.  It really is a chore.  It is amazing that anything ever gets done in New Orleans.

City Hall, New Orleans

There is supposed to be a neon outline of the Mississippi River running behind the letters that say "CITY HALL."  Looking at the picture above, you'll notice that the only part that stays lit nowadays is the smidge of tubes between the H and the A.  Uptown.  As Kermit Ruffins like to ask during his Thursday set at Bullet's Sports Bar on A.P. Tureaud Avenue, "What is New Orleans?"  I always think it's that little bit of neon light that stays lit.

We live in a very interesting neighborhood.  It gets better every day.  

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.