A Slice of Mid-City: Part V- Venezia

Posted on May 20, 2014 by arijking

In every neighborhood there are those culinary establishments that despite hell or high-water come to represent the past, present, and future of a neighborhood for residents. Venezia is one of those places. It is undeniably a neighborhood institution, offering diners from all over the world but most importantly New Orleans, the opportunity to sit in a place where thousands of New Orleanians have sat before, to enjoy heaping portions of traditional creole Italian fare.

For roughly 30 years, Venezia was owned and operated by Anthony Carollo since 1957. Anthony Carollo was the son of the infamous New Orleans’ mob boss Sylvestro “Silver Dollar Sam” Carollo. This remains an important part of Venezia’s history as customers frequently discuss the place as a former mob hang out as they enjoy their heaping plates of spaghetti and “red gravy”. In 1987 the property was sold to the current owner Anthony Bologna, who was responsible for the post-Katrina renovations and reopening.

Venezia is more than just a neighborhood pizza restaurant although they do bake a delicious Sicilian style pie. It is a neighborhood anchor that since the late 1950s has attracted other food oriented businesses to the area, beginning with its neighbor Brocato’s. When interview Mid City residents about what they perceived to be the draw of Mid City to New Orleans eaters, Venezia is nearly always at the top of the list. It is a restaurant that cooks up nostalgia for New Orleans residents everyday. On the spectrum of creolization-Americanization, Venezia is the opposite of Domino’s. Diners at Venezia spend hours supping and drinking delicious house wine. The idea is to savor the food and savor the history of New Orleans with every bite. I find the fact that Venezia is still bustling nearly every night of the week an excellent sign that despite their new neighbors (Pei-Wei, Five Guys, Felipe’s, Panera) New Orleanians are still willing to enjoy the slower more traditional things in life.

posted by Arianna King

A Slice of Mid-City: Part IV- What do you know about Banks Street?

Posted on May 19, 2014 by arijking

In addition to the plethora of pizza offerings on and around Canal and Carrollton, Banks Street is booming with both tasty handcrafted pizza and amazing brunch offerings. Both Mid-City Pizza and Crescent Pie & Sausage Company , similar to their neighbors Katie’s, Wit’s Inn, and Theo’s offer tasty, New Orleans-style pies in addition to a comfortable place for patrons to come and hang out.

Mid City Pizza.jpg Just one year ago, Mid-City said goodbye to longtime pizza spot Lazaro’s and hello to Mid-City Pizza, which bakes up my favorite pizza in the neighborhood. Located at 4413 Banks St, Mid-City pizza is also accessible through Banks Street Bar, a great neighborhood dive and music venue. From a small window in the back of the bar, patrons can order pizza by the pie or slice, to compliment the cold beer on tap. Again, the expansion of hangout space is huge in New Orleans eating and drinking culture and is a crucial part of any neighborhood pizza spot. In addition to the relaxed vibe, Mid-City Pizza also presents some innovative pies including on Monday the Red Beans & Rice Pizza.

Just across the street from Mid-City Pizza is another New Orleans pizza place sister to nearby pizza-neighbor, Pizzicare on Tulane Ave. just a few miles down the road. This place, while specializing in homemade sausages and tasty sandwiches, offers diners delicious New Orleans inspired pizza options too. With choices like the Duck & Brie pizza and the always classic Marguerita, Crescent Pie & Sausage seeks to create gourmet pizza from fresh local ingredients, fusing New Orleans culinary artisanship with modern pizza flare. All of their sausages and many of their cured meat toppings are made in house.

Both of the places fuse New Orleans style ingredients with classic pizza recipes while also offering comfortable, no-rush benches and tables to relax and enjoy good food with good friends. These elements, seen especially through the lens of pizza in Mid-City are crucial parts of life in Mid-City and in New Orleans in general.

posted by Arianna King

A Slice of Mid-City: Part II- Chains

Posted on May 17, 2014 by arijking

In my investigation of Pizza in the Mid-City neighborhood, I found that despite a healthy smattering of local neighborhood pizza places, it also is categorized by a generous offering of national Pizza restaurants as well, which are interestingly all located in very close proximity to one another. According to national market research, national chains take only 35% of the pizza market share in the United States with the majority of business going to smaller local pizzerias, which also abound in Mid-City.

Pizza Hut, Papa John’s Pizza, and Domino’s Pizza are conveniently all clustered around the intersection of N. Carrollton and Bienville Ave and have all joined Mid-City’s Restaurant Row rather recently. Domino’s was the first to open its doors in 2007, followed by Papa John’s in 2012 and most recently Pizza Hut in 2013 with the opening of the new Mid-City Mall. Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s have very similar business models, which keeps them in close competition for their share of the Mid-City pizza market.

three chains map

Domino’s Pizza is the leader amongst pizza chains with regards to online and mobile ordering and delivery. This is reflected in the built environment of the Domino’s located in Mid-City. With several reserved parking spots and very few tables inside the actual restaurant, it is clear that Domino’s is catering to the Mid-City take-out crowd. Its location right on N. Carrollton Ave, puts it perfect position for commuters looking for food on their way home.

Because of its diverse menu options (pizzas, sandwiches, pastas, chicken, and flavored breads), Domino’s as a corporation, has seen consistent growth over the last decade, despite its inability to respond to consumer demand for more healthy choices. Domino’s main focus for growth according to a 2013 SWOT analysis is expanding into emerging markets in India and China. This is a sentiment shared by most fast-food restaurants not already engaged in those markets.

Domino’s employees and management at the Mid-City location continuously declined interviews and thus a deeper look into this particular location was impossible.

Papa John’s moved to its Mid-City location in 2012 following the shuffling of several business that shared space within the strip mall. Prior to Katrina, the space currently occupied by Papa John’s was first Sounds Warehouse Music and Movies, which was bought out by Blockbuster just months before the neighborhood’s devastation.

Similar to the Domino’s located just across the street, Papa John’s Pizza has easy access to reserved parking. It too has limited dining facilities inside the building and thus also caters to the take-out eaters of the neighborhood and surrounding area. Unlike Domino’s, however, Papa John’s offers only the most basic pizza options and are known mostly for their garlic butter dipping sauce which accompanies every pie. With 4,200 locations, Papa John’s is the smallest of the national pizza chain restaurants present in Mid-City. Similar to Domino’s, however, Papa John’s employees and management were also unenthusiastic about answering questions and sharing their thoughts on the role and relevance of their restaurant in the Mid-City food cluster.

Pizza Hut is the largest global chain represented in the Mid-City neighborhood of New Orleans. The fast-food pizza chain boasts more than 20,000 franchises all around the world and although in their 2013 SWOT analysis, they recognized consumer satisfaction with their pizza is in decline, they chain continues to seek out new ways to stay competitive. Part of this strategy includes WingStreet, a major marketing strategy of the Mid-City location, especially during Saints Football Season! WingStreet is a menu of chicken wings available at most Pizza Hut locations.

A similar challenge faced by competitors Papa John’s and Domino’s Pizza Hut has struggled to adjust to the increase in public awareness around the adverse effects of eating high fat/high calorie diets, like pizza. As a business model Pizza Hut can not compete with the fresher and sometimes more local ingredients that other neighborhood pizza chains such as Theo’s and Crescent Pie & Sausage Company offer their customers.

The reality that these three chains have come to Mid-City in the post-Katrina context is not surprising. This kind of business development is a trend that can be seen all around the city, from the stirrings of a Chipotle opening on Magazine Street to the commodification of New Orleans culture seen throughout the French Quarter. Due to the physical and economic devastation that hurricane Katrina brought upon the City of New Orleans, locally-based business faced competition from national corporations that were left unscathed.

These businesses represent one extreme of the creolization-to-Americanization food culture spectrum. The food is predictable, available quickly, affordable, and familiar to people all across the world. These pizza chains represent a tension that can be seen throughout the city of New Orleans because of their proximal competition with local chains. Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, and Domino’s represent the highly-Americanized end of the spectrum and as a result appeal to a limited audience.

posted by Arianna King

A Slice of Mid-City: Part I- A Snapshot

Posted on May 16, 2014 by arijking

In addition to my discussions of how the wide range of pizza available in Mid-City reflects some of the growing cultural and ideological tensions in New Orleans, I offer up here a quick look into the demographic changes the neighborhood has undergone since Hurricane Katrina.

Mid-City is a rapidly changing neighborhood and while the last ten years have seen a lot of change, demographics are slow to change. The charts below may offer readers a more in-depth look into some of the neighborhood demographic information. All data was taken from The Data Center.

Mid-City experienced substantial population loss due to hurricane Katrina, with some parts of the neighborhood experience peak flood depths of up to 8 feet. Although the distribution of ages and races represented in the neighborhood remained relatively consistent before the storm and after, the neighborhood has yet to recoup it’s pre-Katrina population numbers. This may soon change, according to Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans, Mid-City is one of the fastest-rebuilding neighborhoods since the storm.

We can see from these Pizza-pie charts that the Hispanic population is the fastest growing in Mid-City. This can be seen in the large number of hispanic owned and operated food businesses on Carrolton. Since August of 2013, Mid-City has seen an influx of national chain restaurants on S. Carrolton. In addition to these chain business the neighborhood boast an attractive location for locally owned businesses as well. This rapid growth of food oriented businesses to the neighborhood stands as proof to the testament that Mid-City plays a major role in supporting New Orleans’ food culture!

posted by Arianna King

A Slice of Mid-City In Five Parts: Intro

Posted on May 15, 2014 by arijking

The origins of the delicious modern staple are somewhat in dispute. While some historians point to the existence of brick pizza ovens in pre-Vesuvius Pompeii as early as 79 A.D., others argue for its origins as a peasant food in Naples in the late eighteenth century as baked flatbread with tomato toppings. Regardless of when pizza may have been born, it began it’s trek to the North American continent through the hearts and hands of Italian immigrants. These Italians settled all over the country including right here in New Orleans.

Since Pizza debuted in New Orleans in the French Market, courtesy of Sicilian immigrants in the 19th century, it has undergone a diverse array of transformation that are reflective of the transitions New Orleans herself has undergone. As Dr. Beriss mentions in his introduction to our Spring 2014 research, many of these changes reflect a tension between creolization and Americanization of New Orleans food and culture.

Mid-City is a neighborhood rich in pizza and is perhaps one of the most pizza-saturated neighborhoods in town. As of April 2014, there are total of 9 Pizza-serving establishments that currently sling pies to the neighborhood’s pizza-gobbling residents. These establishments run the gamut from traditional Italian-style pie to unique New Orleans inspired pizza, boasting familiar creole flavors in a whole new context.

In the posts that follow, I aim to give readers an in-depth look at Pizza in Mid-City and how it reflects the unique blend of people who are coming together to build and experience New Orleans’ unique culture. I will discuss some of the tensions between locally owned Pizza restaurants and national chains as well as where the various establishments fall on the creolization-to-Americanization spectrum.

posted by Arianna King

Exploring Their Connections

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Seth Gray

One of the objectives of our Restaurant Row Recovery Project is to try to better understand how restaurants have played a role, if any, in the relationships with, and within, the neighborhood and the Greater New Orleans area.

Obviously, as businesses, they compete to provide a service in exchange for an established price. From the other side, the consumer provides the restaurant owner and his employees a means of financial support. Bottom line is that these are businesses, and profitability is fundamental to their survival. But these local establishments seem almost as dependent upon their relationships as their bottom line. After interviewing some of the owners, employees, and customers of the Row it quickly became apparent that there was much more to this story.

For starters, most of the restaurant owners interviewed by my colleagues and I have described a type of local connection fundamental to their supply chain. Some, like the owner of EcoCafe, actively engage in more grass roots community networking, by striving to buy from local farmer’s markets as much as is absolutely possible. Others like, Paul Ballard, founder and CEO of WOW Café and Wingery, as well as PJ’s Coffee, are supplied by larger firms, but are nonetheless local. Frank, owner of Rinconcito, went so far as to express a sense of loss when he mentioned decreasing his seafood order from local supplier Vincent Piazza, Jr. & Sons Seafood Incorporated due to the BP oil spew plunging the demand for seafood. These all serve as examples of restaurants playing the role of consumer and local patron, but also express how each strives to maintain a connection to place.

Afternoon Delivery

The bartender and daughter of Delmy Cruz, owner of Fiesta Latina, echoed what Paul had said about being there not just to make money, but to serve a community in need. This got me thinking about what we, as consumers, need to have in a restaurant relationship. What is it we expect to get out of a restaurant beyond a quality meal? How are those expectations met? I know I enjoy going to the places where I know the staff. Making a connection to the people who work in my favorite haunts is fundamental to it actually becoming one of my favorites.

Paul talked about his amazement with the response to first opening after the storm. He said he had never heard so many heartfelt thank you’s in his life. He recalls seeing people piling their MREs (Meals-Ready-to-Eat distributed by the military in the wake of Katrina) on the table while they ordered their first familiar meal in weeks. Paul says he will always remember how happy people were to be in one place eating wings of all things. To them, the folks at WOW were heroes. They brought back something familiar. They brought back a little bit of normality and Americana: beer, wings, and college football.

Above all, these examples go to show how restaurants can often play a much larger role in the neighborhood beyond providing substance to an already nourished population base. They can serve as counselors, organizers, entertainers, neighbors, and sometimes friends. Of course, for our study group it doesn’t hurt to have a tasty baseline from which one can operate.

Telling Their Own Story

Posted on August 23, 2010 by foodanthro

I will start with the obvious: chefs and restaurants are trendy. Above all, chefs in fancy white tablecloth restaurants have become important players in the making of the symbolic economy (that is the one in which you buy things—a sports car, a zucchini, a house, shoes—because it means something to you, not just because you need it). Eating in their restaurants, reading and watching their interviews and TV shows and buying their cookbooks and other products are all part of the process by which we consumers make ourselves into the kind of people we think we want to be. Through all of the media they create, these restaurateurs tell their own stories and make themselves into who we think they are…and help give meaning to our own dining and cooking experiences.

The process through which some of the more savvy chefs define themselves is fascinating to watch. One of the difficulties faced by social scientists who want to study restaurateurs is precisely that they are great at telling their own stories. They are good at connecting with the desires and ideas that permeate our societies. The stories of chefs’ lives, of the highs and lows of kitchen life, of the creative process in the restaurant, of difficult customers or unusual settings to prepare a meal all help create a kind of template that the rest of us can use to frame our lives, culinary or otherwise.

There are no famous chefs or media stars in our Mid-City restaurant cluster. But there are stories to tell, as we have already documented here. Perhaps more importantly, the restaurateurs are, in many cases, already telling their own stories. They use web pages and social media, along with more traditional media, to create this narrative. Restaurants like Mandina’s and Brocato‘s have quite elaborate web sites, outlining their histories, including pre and post Katrina events, details about rebuilding and links to outside writing or video about them. Of course, they also include menus, addresses and hours as well as contact information. Not all the neighborhood restaurants have web sites (we list those that do on the right side of the blog) and not all of them have extensive information. Some of the restaurants also have Facebook pages and some may also use other social media as well. I am linked to several of them in this way and mostly get regular—and mouthwatering—reports of daily specials.

Still, the media are there and the restaurants are beginning to employ them to do more than simply announce specials. They are using them to tell their stories and thus shape the way we think about them. This is rapidly becoming an important part of how we can think about forces shaping the neighborhood and city. The manner in which the restaurant owners represent themselves through their web sites and social media shapes our knowledge about them and will eventually help contour our understanding of the neighborhood beyond their doors. All of this raises a lot of questions: why do some restaurants pursue this while others do not? (In our study, restaurants catering to recent immigrant populations seem less likely to have extensive web sites, for example.) Who reads the sites and what do they take away from that? As restaurants reach out in this way, are they fundamentally changing the dining experience?

The fact that the people we are studying are telling their own stories through these public representations raises another set of issues as well. What kinds of insights do anthropologists (or other social scientists) have that might be different from or complementary to information presented by the restaurants themselves? If we are going to make our work useful, we have to be able to put the restaurant stories into a broader context. We have to show how the restaurants in our cluster fit into and shape the contours of the city’s broader culture and history. As the summer winds down and we start to look closely at our data, we will be concentrating on this. The restaurateurs continue to tell us their stories, both directly and through their public representations. Our job is to put this together and see if something emerges that gives us new ideas about restaurant clusters, neighborhoods, Mid-City and New Orleans. Stay tuned!

Minh-City Cafe

Posted on August 20, 2010 by katrenaann

One of my research adventures took place at Cafe Minh. It is located in what used to be Michael’s Mid-City Grill before the storm. When the latter restaurant did not re-open Post-Katrina, Chef Minh Bui decided that it would be a fitting abode for his Cafe Minh.

With his roots in Vietnam, Chef Minh got his New Orleans start cooking at places such as Emeril’s and Commander’s Palace. After mastering his skills, he developed a Vietnamese-French fusion cuisine that contains hints of local Creole cooking. His first restaurant Lemongrass was opened next to Angelo Brocato’s on Carrollton Avenue. A second location of Lemongrass located in the International House hotel was opened, and a third restaurant called 56 Degrees was also opened in the Whitney Hotel. Before Katrina, both the Carrollton location and 56 Degrees closed. After the storm, Chef Minh decided he wanted to return to Mid-City and opened Cafe Minh at its current location.

Cafe Minh fits perfectly in the Restaurant Row even though it is not physically in line with the others. About a block into Canal Street, it is still in close walking distance of the area, however. One thing we can recognize about the Restaurant Row is that even though there may be similar types of food (for instance, Wit’s Inn, Venezia, Theo’s, Papa John’s and Domino’s all have pizza), there is still enough variety throughout the restaurants that they are all able to survive. Among the Asian restaurants, you may find that Little Tokyo, Doson’s Noodle House, Yummy Yummy, and even Cafe Minh have similar items on the menu. Yet because of the creativity of the chefs, the different environments of the restaurants themselves, and the specific cravings of those searching out food, co-existing is not a problem for these places.

Another similarity I have noticed between the Asian restaurants is that the owners or head chefs all learned to cook in their birth countries. This seems to come full circle as they originally learn to cook in the authentic way of their birthplace, then they end up drifting into another type of cuisine (whether it be another Asian cuisine or something completely different), and in the end, they come back to their original style of cooking, adding a bit of their own flair. That little bit of flair and originality is what sets each of these restaurants apart from the other.

During my visit, I discovered that the food at Cafe Minh is excellent, however, when one typically thinks of the item he or she is ordering, one might not get exactly what they are expecting. For instance, when I ordered the fried eggplant, I did not expect it to be topped with mozzarella, on top of tomatoes, on top of a bed of lettuce, on top of toast. It was amazing nonetheless. This is an example of Chef Minh’s genius at work.

For dessert I had the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, and it was divine. Colorful and divine.

Also, while visiting Cafe Minh, I immediately noticed all of the artwork on the walls. With the high ceilings and ambient lighting, I almost felt that I was in an art gallery for a moment. The bartender even told me that the artwork is rotated by several local artists throughout the year.

When wandering Mid-City and you find yourself wanting something different than the norm, try stopping by Cafe Minh. If anything, the experience is one you’re unlikely to find anywhere else on Restaurant Row.

The Red Door Lounge

Posted on August 19, 2010 by jyocom

The Red Door Lounge is described to me as having “Mid-City charm.” Online reviews, as well as the bar’s homepage, consistently use the same adjective. The bar’s bio states that it is “a cozy place for regulars and an inviting space for newcomers.” Not being overly familiar with Mid-City, I wanted to see what about the bar gave it such obvious Mid-City charm. Then I hoped to discover what Mid-City charm even meant – the term seems to be used and understood by locals with some frequency, as if there were a particular qualifying criteria for such a description.

The front door of the bar is angled in such a way that if viewed in isolation, it would appear to be a corner lot. However, it is not. It is positioned between Taqueria Guerrero and a discount mattress and futon store. Charming. Inside it is narrow, long, dark, and last night, hot; the air conditioning had gone out earlier that day. The walls are lined with a mix of (reproduction?) nostalgia, Saints stuff, some acrylic art, photos from the flood, and bar events promotion boards. There will be free food for next weekend’s Saint’s game. The Red Door also offers a variety of activities, other than drinking. One can gamble using video poker machines, play Wii, darts, pool, or watch TV. It also appears that you could have a dance party. There is a disco ball all the way in back by the pool table.

The crowd seemed almost entirely regulars and many service industry workers. This could be in part because the Red Door offers a discount for industry people. The bartender was very friendly and the drinks were extremely cheap. Though I did not order a $10 bucket of beer or a $5 pitcher, if I had it would have been served with a bag of ice floating to maintain drinking temperature.

The Red Door during a Saint's game

I understand that the bar was originally opened in 1940, but after Katrina, was bought and renovated by its current owner. I have come across reviewers that long for the old Red Door, saying that the new one is “straight out of suburbia.” There are others, though, that feel it is the “perfect neighborhood bar.” One such blogger goes so far as the have specific requirements for earning this title, requirements worth reading as they paint a vivid picture of the Red Door – http://millyonair.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/new-orleans-part-iii-the-red-door/ . Despite the heat and the 90’s pop grunge playing last night (later changed to Erykah Badu, which was great) and the sports-bar-feel of the Red Door, I was charmed. There was an odd assortment of effects that did this; street car going by, holiday string lights, the fact that the bar decorum makes it seem as if they are always hosting a party, and that Restaurant Row and the Red Door Lounge have a slightly dilapidated look and feel to them. It feels like a neighborhood here, maybe that is “Mid-City charm.”.

“This is NOT a Cannoli” (But What Is?)

Posted on August 12, 2010 by aubryk

The very first day I went in to Brocato’s I was overwhelmed by the sheer variety of confectionary delights. Some things were familiar to me as things that are distinctly Italian even though I myself may not have had them before. There were jars of candy coated Almonds, a variety of biscotti to choose from, spumoni, and rum cake. Then there were the cannoli. Or at least I thought they were cannoli. However, they were listed as cannocini with a small sign below, distinctly stating: “This is NOT a cannoli.” I was intrigued, because knowing what they were not did not help me in figuring out precisely what they were. They appeared to be Italian cream filled cylinders, and I was failing to distinguish the difference.

My confusion regarding Brocato’s wares involved their frozen treats as well. During our interview, Arthur Brocato repeatedly referred to his frozen concoctions as “Italian ice creams”. I had considered them to be gelatos and ices. When I looked to their website for clarification, I noticed the following: “For the true connoisseur, Brocato’s offers a complete selection of “gelato” (Italian for ice cream) featuring all natural imported Sicilian flavorings from chestnut to moka to amaretto.”

So, according to Brocato’s, “gelato” is Italian for “ice cream”. Not being convinced that there wasn’t a bigger difference, I scoured the internet, and after looking through numerous Chowhound posts, Wikipedia postings, About.com answers and endless other streams of running commentary on the subject, I gathered that the general consensus is that gelato actually contains milk and cream as opposed to just cream and that the fact that is seems to be superbly creamy in comparison to its ice cream counterpart has more to do with the fact that it is mixed slowly enough that air doesn’t whip in, allowing for a much denser creamy texture. As for the cannocini: when I finally gathered the determination to display my ignorance of Italian desserts and ask for the difference, I was told that they are filled with sweetened custard filling rather than sweetened ricotta as the cannoli are.

I bring up the cannoli and gelato examples not because I wish to nitpick Brocato’s selections and word choices but because I think they serve as excellent examples when it comes to the endless debate on authenticity. If Brocato’s chooses not to call its Italian Ice Cream “gelato”, does it make it any less authentic? Furthermore, if one is to consider the new twists to old tradition, such as spumoni cheesecake, then where does authenticity come in to question? Are we to assume that if it isn’t traditional it isn’t authentic? If that’s the case, then nothing new or innovative would ever fit the definition, we’d be stuck in time forever, slaves to authenticity.

Several people have asked me how I feel about Juan’s Flying Burrito (another of my research subjects on the row) when compared with El Rinconcito or Fiesta Latina. In other words, is Juan’s “authentic” Mexican food? I would say that it all depends on the definition of authenticity. I come from a place where a burrito is food to be held, lunch packed to go. At Juan’s the burritos barely fit on the plate and they are often drenched in sauces. Grasping one would be highly inadvisable. Does it make them something other than a burrito? Not if Juan’s says that’s what they are.