Iconic local grocery store’s doors have closed
12th November 2018 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
Robert LaCour Jr. perched on the stoop, his shoeless feet dangling down to the sidewalk, his possessions cradle on his arm. As he sat in from of a residence along St. Bernard Avenue, his sharp, piercing eyes shifted their glance, occasionally looking to his left, at the now-closed Circle Food Store.
LaCour had been a regular customer at Circle Food Store, where he was able to get a bite to eat or a few other necessities with his meager means. Now, LaCour said, he and many other residents of the 7th Ward neighborhood had even fewer places to go for either products nor spiritual comfort when they desperately needed them.
“It’s heartbreaking,” LaCour said. “A lot of homeless people could go there for hot food on the spot. Now they don’t have a store like that.”
Other local residents could do little more than greet the recent shuttering of Circle Food Store with a dour shrug.
The business that stretched back at least to 1938 and had survived wave after wave of near-devastating challenges—including numerous floods, economic downturns and the building of I-10 through the middle of its neighborhood—was gone, and locals weren’t surprised at the grocery’s ultimate fate.
“They’ve been up there for so long,” said resident Germain Hood as she stood a couple blocks down from the supermarket. “It’s not the first time. It’s another business gone to waste. We’ve seen it close so many times.”
Dwayne Boudreaux, the longtime owner of Circle Food Store, told media outlets last month that his business’ permanent closure was probably and sadly inevitable.
By the beginning of November, the store appeared empty, its half-barren shelves partially hidden in shadow by sunlight and a few lights about them. A piece of white paper was taped to one of the doors, with a single word—“Closed”— scrawled across it.
On a wall near the entrance, underneath a listing of the store’s ideal hours – 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., Sunday through Saturday— a frustrated patron had scribbled “Get yr [sic] hours straight.”
Clinging to one of the pillars ringing the supermarket’s famed storefront—rounded in a semi-circle that curved around from Claiborne Avenue down St. Bernard, a design suited for the once-bustling streetcar line that brought customers to the store from near and far—was a sign for deli and catering offerings. Another stoner column featured a poster advertising wine, spirits and beer.
Nearby stood a placard advertising one of the business’ most renowned products, bell peppers. “The Bell Pepper Capital,” stated the standing sign above a large picture of a green, plump pepper. Below the image of the tasty veggie was printed “Welcome!”
The windows still displayed a multi-colored pastiche of signs and posters touting the store’s array of cell-phone services — they could be bought, sold, traded,repaired or even financed if needed.
Taken together, all the ads — for the peppers and the liquor and the phones and the deli tray —reflected the astounding breadth of Circle Food Store’s offering. At one time the 17,000-square-foot grocery employed 100 people and sold everything from school uniforms to a bounty of Easter candy to chicken feet and snapping turtles, and it became a gathering place and social for the city’s African-American community.
Dr. Reginald A. Parquet, a professor at the Tulane University School of Social Work, said the do-it-all nature of the Circle Food Store made it no only unique, but even revolutionary.
“It was ahead of its time because of its ‘one stop shop’ concept and business model, “Parquet told The Louisiana Weekly. “That business model was attractive not only to the African-American residents in Treme and the 7th Ward, but also to the Greater New Orleans area. … [T]he Circle Food Store was not just a place to ‘make groceries’ and purchase goods and services, it was also a gathering place where African Americans greeted each other, socialized and engaged in conversations around cultural and social issues that were important to them.
“The closure of the store means that now there is one less place and space for these things to take place,” he added.
Boudreaux’s ominous warning last month triggered ripples of concern throughout not just the local black population, but also through the corridors of city hall and other New Orleans government buildings. For decades, city leaders continually lamented that despite concerted, committed help from various civic, entrepreneurial and governmental entities—including millions of dollars in local and state loans and grants—the efforts still often weren’t enough to ultimately preserve a proud, resilient business that over the decades had become a vital part of the community.
As the final gasp of life drained out of the Circle Food Store this fall, City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, whose District C includes the Circle Food Store and surrounding neighborhood, express-ed sorrow at the grocery’s demise.
“When I was in office last time, I pushed for federal dollars to assist stores such as Circle Food in order to provide fresh foods to underserved areas in District C,” Gisleson Palmer told The Louisiana Weekly earlier this month, “and for several years, it was able to serve that purpose. It will be a sad day when this neighborhood fixture is no longer available to the community.”
The travails and tragedies that have battered the Circle Food Store included, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, whose floodwaters had deluged the structure in 2005 and forced its closing until January 2014, after Boudreaux — who could not be contacted for this story—and local leaders worked together and scrambled to come up with more than a combined $12 million in bank loans, city-funded grants and tax credits.
The aid buoyed Boudreaux’s spirits, he told The Lens in 2011.
“The only thing we didn’t do before was caskets,” Boudreaux told reporter Ariella at the time. “We’re going to be that one-stop shop again, but only better.”
But the sudden flooding last summer caused by decrepit and insufficient Sewerage & Water Board infrastructure again devastated the store and triggered a flurry of lawsuits between the business, its financial creditors and the S&WB.
Those gut punches were just the last in a sporadic, decades-long pummeling suffered by not just the Circle Food Store but also the once-vital economy, culture tradition and social tapestry of the African-American community in the Treme and 7th Ward.
The decimation of the neighborhood was gradual and painful, but Parquet said there was one development that absolutely crippled, if not destroyed the Circle Food Circle and once-thriving black community there — the construction of the I-10.
“The demise of the store began,” he said, “between 1966 and 1972 when the business, cultural and residential landscape of the community was significantly and permanently altered when homes and businesses were displaced with the construction and completion of Interstate 10 that ran through the heart of that community. That was a man-made factor.”
Natural disasters, Parquet said, then piled on to the devastation wrought by the interstate.
“[Disasters] also delivered serious blows to the store,” he said. “Physical damage to the store and damage to equipment created a financial hardship for the owner.
“The displace of residents because of Katrina,” Parquet added, “and the long period of time the store remained closed before it could be renovated and reopened, took a major toll on its ability to return to a time when the store was economically and socially viable.”
So what happens now? Parquet said that ideally, “because of its economic, social and cultural significance to Treme, the 7th Ward and the Greater New Orleans community, the Circle Food Store must remain open.”
He added that keeping the store a black enterprise is crucial for the survival of the local community. He said that a “sound, viable business model” should include a vibrant marketing and outreach strategy that “find[s] creative ways to support, sponsor, promote and partner with the multitude of social and cultural groups in the community.”
He suggested that proprietors could host seminars about local history and invite famed New Orleans musicians — he offered Trombone Shorty and Kermit Ruffins as examples — to give performances at the store. Parquet said that even such classic local events like second lines and jazz funerals could bring attention to the location.
“The store should reach out and tap into the rich educational, musical and cultural components of its community,” he said.
But, Parquet, the store’s traditional patrons and clientele must be willing to look past the store’s troubled history and once again provide the financial and economic support it needs for a resurrection.
“The residents of this community must make a real commitment to support and sustain this historic institution,” he said.
Whether that could happen, whether deeply rooted loyalty to and love for the Circle Food Store could return and revive a new edition of the business remains to be seen. Local residents, as well as businessmen and women, have already endured the shock and sadness that’s accompanied the repeated, periodic closing of their beloved market over and over and over again. How much more disappointment can everyone involved take?
At Hank’s Restaurant — located a few blocks away from the shuttered, legendary grocery —owner Oscar Jackson and some of his customers mingled outside Jackson’s bar in the waning, hazy sunlight of a recent sultry autumn night.
When asked about the fate of the Circle Food Store, Jackson and his friends couldn’t offer much beyond a weary mixture of resignation, fatalistic inevitability and lingering sadness regarding the grocery.
“It’s a reality shock, I can tell you that,” Jackson said, shaking his head as he leaned on a car parked along the street. “It tells you how hard it is to be an entrepreneur with a small business. It’s the best you get.”
He then echoed the sentiments of countless residents.
This article originally published in the November 12, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
