Elementary French Teacher (Multiple Openings) New Orleans, LA. Teach elem students the French lang using immersion educ techniques. Bach degree (3 or 4 year degree), in any field. Native or near native flu‐ency in French. Must send CV & cvr ltr to Pierre-Loic Denichou, Ecole Bilingue de la Nouvelle-Orleans, 821 General Pershing St., New Orleans, LA 70115 w/in 30 days, ref Job #2024-111.
strategic plan, budget, curriculum & ac‐creditation. Provide pedagogical guidance for teachers & assist in recruiting & evaluation of tchrs & staff Mast in Educ or rel field. 2 yrs' exp teach French as a second lang at the elem level. Exp to incl a strong backgrnd in each: plan, coord or direct academic activ‐ities; work w/ parents, tchrs & students to address stu‐dent behavioral & academic difficulties; class mgmt & differentiatn. Must have excel knowl of the French Nat'l Educ program & strong knowl of elem educ & teach methodologies. Excel commun in French & English & strong written, verbal & interpersonal skills. Must send CV & cvr ltr to Pierre-Loic Deni‐chou, Ecole Bilingue de la Nouvelle-Orleans, 821 General Pershing St., New Orleans, LA 70115 w/in 30 days, ref Job #2023-279.
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Cotecna Inspection Inc - Metairie, LAAgricultural Engineer –GAFTA, FOSFA, ISO, GMP+, GTP, USDA inspection standards; Masters in Agri Engineer, Mech Engineering, or rel; 12 mos exp w/ Agri inspection methods Mail res: S Lee, 6660 Riverside Dr, Ste 260, Metairie, LA 70003
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Stomping grounds
The 25th anniversary Satchmo SummerFest features lives music,
talks on Louis Armstrong and more
LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S VIRTUOSO TALENTS AND CHARM EARNED HIM a singular place on top of the jazz world, as well as international fame and popularity, which can obscure his very humble beginnings.
He adored his mother, though she sometimes left him to take care of his younger sister for weeks at a time. She drank heavily and was arrested for prostitution. Armstrong has talked of standing up to bullies in his neighborhood, and for a while, he worked carting coal in Storyville, which inspired entertaining recollections in his autobiography.
But for all the hard knocks, he always thought of New Orleans as his home and wrote fondly about his young life.
“When you read his book, Louis tells everything with a wink and a smile: “Well, we were poor, but we were happy,’ ” says Ricky Riccardi, who earlier this year released the biography “Stomp Off, Let’s Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong.” “At the same time, I am coming across arrest records and alcohol. It was definitely darker than the picture he paints. It was a scary, uncertain time: racism, hunger, poverty, the police. It’s all real, and it’s scary. But Louis had his mother, he had Black Benny and Joe Oliver. He had this community that nurtured him, protected him and made sure that he emerged a great man and a great musician.”
Riccardi will discuss Armstrong and his mentor Joe Oliver and other related topics at Satchmo SummerFest at the New Orleans Jazz Museum on Aug. 2-3. The annual festival features two music stages outdoors and one indoors, as well as panel discussions with talks about Armstrong’s life and music and related subjects.
Satchmo SummerFest is marking its 25th anniversary. It was founded on roughly the centennial of Armstrong’s birth, though that is a subject of disagreement. Armstrong always said he was born on July 4, 1900, though scholars point to a birth certificate that says Aug. 4, 1901. Riccardi examines that and gives great deference to Armstrong’s views of it in the book.
“Stomp Off” offers a lively chronicle of Armstrong’s youngest years and offers new insight about when he first learned to play music and who might have influenced him. It details where he lived, in both the home of his grandmother, who was born into slavery, and with his mother, and the community that nurtured him.
by Will Coviello
“In ‘Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans,” people got frustrated that he didn’t talk so much about the music,” Riccardi says. “He spends pages talking about Black Benny and Joe Oliver and pimps and gamblers and all that stuff. I think there was a reason for that. I think those were the people who allowed him to become Louis Armstrong.”
Riccardi has released two books about Armstrong’s adult life, “Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong” and “What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years.” He says it seems odd to do his books in reverse chronological order, but it worked to his benefit. In the last decade, new sources have become available, many of them due to the internet and digitization of all sorts of records.
Riccardi is the director of research collections at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens, New York.
The son of an editor for Armstrong’s “Satchmo” autobiography gave the archives an original, unedited manuscript, which Riccardi used heavily for his book. He also received transcripts and documents that have become available from Lil Hardin, Armstrong’s second wife. There also were volumes of past interviews posted online, and the Tulane Hogan Jazz Archive has papers from Tad Jones, who did extensive research about Armstrong’s early years.
The picture is fascinating, with accounts of Armstrong in the rough Backatown neighborhood and at the
Colored Waif’s Home for Boys, where he was sent a couple of times, most famously after shooting a pistol on New Year’s Eve. Armstrong quickly became the leader of the institution’s band. Riccardi will discuss the book at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Jazz Museum. Riccardi also is a Grammy winner this year. His 40,000word liner notes for a box set of work from Armstrong mentor Joe “King” Oliver won a trophy, as did the box set for best historic album. Riccardi and Archeophone Records’ Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey will discuss that project at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Riccardi also is a pianist, and he’ll play his first proper set at the festival. He’ll perform duets with Preservation Hall Jazz Band leader and trumpeter Wendell Brunious at 2 p.m. Saturday inside the museum.
Other highlights of the scholarly portion of the festival include Robert Cataliotti discussing Armstrong’s work with women singers including Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith (noon Sunday). Professor Robert Mikell screens clips of Armstrong on film (1 p.m. Saturday). There also are sessions on musicians Dexter Gordon and Joe Darensbourg. The festival’s music lineup features traditional jazz and more. Saturday features Delfeayo Marsalis and the Uptown Jazz Orchestra, Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound, Victor Campbell, James Andrews and the Sons of Satchmo, Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph, Don Vappie and the Blue Jazz Band, Young Fellaz Brass Band and more.
Sunday has Kermit Ruffins’ Tribute to Louis Armstrong, John Boutte, Charmaine Neville, Kyle Roussel with Quiana Lynell and Erica Falls, Shamarr Allen with Cyril Neville and more. There’s also a Jazz Mass and second line parade on Sunday. Visit the festival website for a schedule and full list of events.
Satchmo SummerFest is a free festival. Find information at satchmosummerfest.org.
White Linen Night
There are art shows, live music, art activations and more during White Linen Night in the Warehouse District. Art galleries, museums and some businesses in the Warehouse District host receptions for new shows, including the annual Louisiana Contemporary at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The entertainment lineup features CASME and DJs. Entertainment stages, live painting, bars and food vendors are set up on the 300-600 blocks of Julia Street. At 5-10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2. Visit artsdistrictneworleans.com for details.
Mumford & Sons
In 2011, folk rock band Mumford & Sons led the Railroad Revival Tour, traveling by train across the southwest from Oakland, California, to New Orleans and playing shows along the way. The tour ended at Woldenberg Park, and a documentary called “Big Easy Express,” followed the experience. Mumford & Sons is now resurrecting the tour, this time starting in New Orleans and riding the rails northeast. The band kicks things off Sunday, Aug. 3, at Champions Square and will be joined by Lainey Wilson, Trombone Shorty, Celisse, Chris Thile and more. Tickets start at $137.95 via railroadrevival.com.
Counting Crows
Counting Crows jumped to the top of the 1990s alt rock scene with its debut album, “August and Everything After” and its hit “Mr. Jones.” The band is touring in support of May release “Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!,” which is an expanded version of its 2021 album, “Butter Miracle, Suite One.” The Gaslight Anthem also performs. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 30, at Saenger Theatre. Tickets $48 and up via saengernola.com.
PHOTO BY MATTHEW PERSCHALL / THE TIMES- PICAYUNE
John Boutte will perform Sunday at Satchmo SummerFest.
PHOTO BY SCOTT THRELKELD / THE TIMES- PICAYUNE
OPENING GAMBIT
NEW ORLEANS NEWS + VIEWS
Somebody needs to cut the air on, it’s gettin’ way too hot around here
THUMBS
UP/ THUMBS DOWN
Thousands of young Lutherans could recently be seen in brightly colored T-shirts doing volunteer work around New Orleans. Almost 20,000 Lutherans, ranging from elementary school-aged kids to young adults, were in town last week for the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod’s youth gathering, and many of them participated in service projects while in the city, including helping to set up classrooms at Audubon Charter School and working at Sugar Roots Farm.
1,080
THE NUMBER OF NEW ORLEANIANS WHO HAVE RECEIVED A “40 UNDER 40” AWARD FROM GAMBIT, INCLUDING THIS YEAR’S CLASS.
Gambit launched the annual feature in 1997, showcasing the young movers and shakers making a difference in the city. It skipped only one year – after Hurricane Katrina – though the aftermath of the storm inspired even more young people hoping to create change.
Louisiana’s Congressional Republicans all voted to claw back $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The reclamation of funds — particularly pushed by Sen. John Neely Kennedy and Rep. Steve Scalise — will have a devastating impact on public radio stations and TV channels around the country.
Top aides openly split with LaToya Cantrell over controversial French Quarter trash deal
SENIOR MEMBERS OF NEW ORLEANS MAYOR LATOYA CANTRELL’S ADMINISTRATION are publicly breaking with Cantrell over her decision to switch French Quarter trash contractors at the end of the month, telling the city council they don’t think her preferred contractor is ready to do the job.
from Henry Consulting earlier this month, “It was clear that they had not yet secured facilities, actually purchased equipment, had it in their possession or hired” the personnel or subcontractors required to fulfill the contract.
The Sewerage and Water Board in May sent thousands of gallons of raw sewage into the New Orleans stormwater drainage system, the Louisiana Illuminator reported. After a sewer main broke under Almonaster Avenue in New Orleans East, S&WB decided to send the sewage into roadside ditches instead of calling for vacuum trucks to clean the area. When the state Department of Environmental Quality investigated, S&WB said the volume of sewage was too much for the vacuum trucks to handle.
At a July 21 council hearing, Cantrell’s Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Joe Threat and Department of Sanitation Director Matt Torri all said they believed the mayor should let IV Waste’s emergency contract continue through the end of the year rather than have Henry Consulting take over July 31.
Although Cantrell has no meaningful relationship with council members at this point, her top aides have remained at least publicly loyal, even when she’s thrown Montano and others to the proverbial wolves during her myriad second-term scandals. But with only a few months left in office, it seems some of her top aides are becoming more comfortable speaking out.
Torri said when they talked with Troy Henry and other officials
“Given that we were three weeks away from the proposed start of that contract, all of those were alarming to us and presented great risk,” Torri added.
They told Cantrell as much at a meeting on July 8, and they said everyone in the room, including the mayor, left in agreement that they would reverse Cantrell’s April decision to end IV Waste’s contract on July 31 and instead let the firm continue servicing the area.
They even drafted a document to formalize the decision and were in the process of ironing out whether IV Waste’s contract would go through the end of the year or a different date — when Cantrell abruptly switched course.
According to Montano, Threat and Torri, the day after their meeting with Cantrell she informed 17.2%
C’EST
WHAT ?
IV Waste employees pick up trash on Decatur Street in the New Orleans French Quarter Monday, July 21, 2025.
PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD / THE TIMES- PICAYUNE
Montano she was moving ahead with ending IV Waste’s contract and declaring another state of emergency with Henry Consulting as the emergency contractor.
She emailed Montano that afternoon that she had taken “a deeper dive into the issues posed regarding the contractor’s ability versus inability to start 7/31 and have gained the confidence needed to stand by the initial decision to terminate the existing emergency contract.”
Both Montano and Torri said they didn’t know what had changed the mayor’s mind. Threat said he knew Cantrell had met directly with Henry after the July 8 meeting with her team.
“I don’t know if it changed her mind, but I think that she talked to him to gain some type of assurances,” he said.
Council Vice President Helena Moreno, who is running for mayor, replied, “So instead of listening in to her operational team, she listened to the contractor who’s going to be paid. I got it.”
The council ended Cantrell’s emergency order on July 10, the day after she made it.
In a statement following the hearing, the administration did not refute the statements by Torri, Montano and Threat, saying “These legal matters will ultimately be resolved by the courts. The City remains committed to working with all parties to provide sanitation services to the French Quarter and [Downtown Development District].”
Council questions new contract’s legitimacy
Meanwhile, council members also questioned whether the emergency contract was actually signed by the mayor, city attorney’s office and Henry on July 9, as it was dated.
Through public records, the council found that members of the administration were emailing each other about the contract as late as 10:48 p.m. on July 9.
The date is important because the contract would need to be signed before the council ended Cantrell’s emergency order around 11:30 a.m. on July 10.
Council President JP Morrell also pointed out that on the copy of the contract provided to the council, there was a space in the middle of the line where the date was written. He said that could be a sign of Wite-Out or other correction fluid being used to alter the date on the document.
“It could possibly be,” City Attorney Donesia Turner said. “It could be that the printer is not printing perfectly.”
Morrell also said he hadn’t seen a signed surety bond, which ensures that if Henry Consulting doesn’t follow through on its end of the deal, the city will be compensated for its losses, up to the bond amount.
Such a bond should have been signed before the emergency contract, he said.
“If the surety bond was not signed at the time when the contract was signed, that is significantly problematic,” he said. “If it was done at the recommendation of counsel, that’s malpractice, and if it was done on its own, that’s malfeasance.”
In fact, documents obtained by Morrell appear to back up Morrell’s concerns. Morrell says those documents also appear to show someone altered the date on the contract.
A photo of the original document shows the 9 in the date written over Wite-Out or another correction fluid.
“I did not expect this level of lazy conspiracy to unwind this quickly,” Morrell said in a video on Instagram.
Those documents show that Troy Henry, owner of Henry Consulting, signed a draft version of the emergency trash contract at 11:38 p.m. on July 9. Henry’s lawyer Daniel Davillier then sent the contract to Senior Chief Deputy City Attorney Colette White at 10:03 a.m. July 10. White sent Davillier the “fully executed sanitation contract” at 12:38 p.m., around
an hour after the council ended the mayor’s emergency declaration.
“What the mayor has continued to argue is that the council had no authority to terminate the emergency, we had no authority to affect this contract going out,” Morrell said. “If we don’t have the authority, ladies and gentlemen, why in the hell would they go through all these crazy schemes to back date the document?”
The July 9 date was also used by Cantrell’s lawyer Charles Rice to make a legal argument in the citizen lawsuit over the mayor’s attempt to change trash contractors.
“They needed to postdate this contract in order so that Mr. Rice could put (it) in his attempt to stop those citizens from the mayor’s unlawful actions,” Morrell said. “They needed to postdate a contract to fit in their argument.”
A judge July 23 denied an injunction sought in that suit.
The saga continues
The back and forth over the $73 million French Quarter trash contract, which also includes the Downtown Development District, started last year when Cantrell’s administration gave the contract to Henry Consulting after a public bidding process.
Amid an ongoing dispute between Henry and a subcontractor, the council refused to sign off on the contract, prompting Henry to sue the council in December. That left the area without a trash provider, creating an emergency situation. Sidney Torres’ IV Waste received a yearlong emergency contract set to end this December.
IV Waste has been popular among French Quarter residents and business. The company is pressure washing blocks of the Quarter daily, though their contract only requires it three times a week.
The new emergency contract with Henry Consulting is over $2 million more than the one with IV Waste. It also doesn’t include pressure washing, so the city would be paying more for fewer services.
Tom Anton, a director, said he’s working on creating TV series filmed in the French Quarter. He said the French Quarter has a reputation among production companies for being “filthy” and “smelly,” but he’s been reassuring them that’s no longer the case since IV Waste came in.
“It’s not that way now,” he said. “I hope we can continue with the cleanliness and how we’ve changed the Quarter to make it so much better.”
— Kaylee Poche
Businessman Troy Henry STAFF PHOTO BY CHRIS GRANGER
City Council President JP Morrell STAFF PHOTO BY BRETT DUKE
John Stanton: Support local alternative media before it’s
too late
NEW ORLEANS’ MEDIA INDUSTRY RECENTLY GATHERED at the Cannery for the annual Press Club of New Orleans dinner and awards ceremony where we feted local media legends and the outstanding work from the last year by our colleagues.
Normally, it’s a fun night, but this year’s get-together had something of a black cloud hanging over it. The day before, Congress approved cutting $1.1 billion in federal spending on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Those cuts will have potentially devastating impacts on a host of local outlets, including WWNO, W YES-TV and WWOZ.
WWNO, for instance, is seeing $250,000 in cuts, while WWOZ’s budget has been slashed by $400,000. WYES just saw $800,000 stripped out of their coffers — roughly equal to 13% of their operating budget.
While publicly broadcast stations typically aren’t completely funded exclusively by the federal government, it still makes up a substantial portion of their operating budget. The cuts will be felt, not only by the stations themselves — but also by the public.
Meanwhile, in the latest issue of Antigravity, editor Holly Devon warned the longtime mainstay of progressive journalism in the city is facing its own financial dire straits. “It is July, and the economy is bad, so advertisers are trying to pull ads for summer, bringing us closer to the day—at this rate, in the very near future—where we cannot continue to publish this magazine,” Devon wrote.
Alternative media outlets have always been masters of the tired cliche “doing more with less.” Our staffs are smaller than mainstream outlets. We rely heavily on advertising by locally owned and operated small businesses, which for decades have faced their own existential threats from the growth of big box stores and internet commerce, shrinking their already small advertising budgets.
But the cuts to our local public broadcasting outlets and Antigravity’s financial troubles go
well beyond the normal fiscal turbulence we’re used to. For TV and radio outlets, the cuts will make it harder for them to cover our community and highlight our culture in the ways they have. They could also threaten the long-term viability of the stations themselves.
Imagine a world without WWNO’s news coverage, WYES’ documentaries, Antigravity’s voter guide or WWOZ’s preposterously talented line-up of DJs and event programming.
From Morgus the Magnificent to DJ Soul Sister, these outlets have given a platform to some of the city’s most iconic and influential personalities and helped spread the story of our culture across the globe. And they’ve covered pivotal moments in our history, uncovered wrongdoing and injustice in government and provided a lifeline to home for the New Orleans diaspora during Katrina and the years since.
Our government, and indeed our society, can only function properly if we have a healthy and vibrant local media ecosystem. Vast parts of the United States are now so-called “news deserts” with no local media to hold local officials and other powerful interests to account.
In troubled times such as these, that isn’t only bad, it can be downright deadly. That’s why now, more than ever, it’s time we support these alternative outlets through donations large and small (shameless plug alert: as well as Gambit, of course, by becoming a member of the Gambit Krewe). Literally every dollar you can give them will help keep them going now — and hopefully, well into the future.
shop @ gaetanasnola
NewAfrican Masquerades: Artistic Innovationsand Collaborations spotlightsthe work of four contemporaryartists working in citiesacross West Africa: ChiefEkpenyongBasseyNsa,Sheku “Goldenfnger” Fofanah, David Sanou, and Hervé Youmbi.
Hey Blake, I came across a 1950s photo of a place called Prima’s 500 Club on Bourbon Street. Was it owned by Louis Prima? When was it in business, and did Prima perform there?
Dear reader,
PRIMA’S 500 CLUB WAS LOCATED AT 441 BOURBON ST., at the corner of Bourbon and St. Louis streets. While trumpeter, singer, bandleader and New Orleans native Louis Prima did perform there, it was operated by his older brother, Leon, also a trumpet player and bandleader.
An advertisement in the New Orleans Item from September 1946 announced the opening of Prima’s 500 Club, the “new and swanky club” where Leon would be performing. Louis would appear there the following January. He would return over the years, including with Keely Smith, his singing co-star and fourth wife.
In addition to musical acts, burlesque stars such as Kalantan (billed as the “heavenly body”), Yvette Dare and her sarong-stealing parrot and Lilly
BLAKE VIEW
Christine, known as the “Cat Girl,” performed on the 500 Club stage. It’s also where Louis Prima first encountered New Orleans saxophonist Sam Butera, who performed there frequently. When Louis Prima was looking to staff his new band at Las Vegas’ Sahara Hotel, he scouted Butera at the 500 Club and offered him a job. Butera and his band, the Witnesses, made music history by performing to sold-out crowds with Prima and Smith throughout the 1950s and ’60s.
By 1958, Leon Prima had moved from the 500 Club to a new club, Prima’s Casino Club, at 501 Bourbon St. The 500 Club continued under different management.
IT HAS HOSTED PRESIDENTS AND A POPE, EIGHT SUPER BOWLS, six Final Fours, Wrestlemania, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, the Rolling Stones and much more. This week we mark 50 years since the opening of the Superdome on Aug. 3, 1975.
Designed by architect Nathaniel “Buster” Curtis Jr., construction on the building began on Aug. 11, 1971. Nearly four years and $165 million later, opening ceremonies began with William Connick, the Superdome’s secretary-treasurer, telling a crowd of 40,000 “this is your building, this is your day.”
Also speaking were then-Gov. Edwin Edwards, New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu and former Gov. John McKeithen, whose support for the Dome’s construction was critical.
Earning accolades at the ceremony was Dome promoter Dave Dixon, whom Lt. Gov. Jimmy Fitzmorris called “a man who dreamed the impossible dream” in envisioning the structure and who — along with McKeithen and Mayor Victor Schiro — led the charge for its construction. After the ceremony, Dixon told John Pope, then a States-Item reporter, it was “a fabulous building that goes far beyond my expectations.”
The New Orleans Saints played their first preseason game there six days later and their first regular season home game on Sept. 28, 1975 — losing both.
The Dome hosted its first Super Bowl in 1978 and first Final Four in 1982. It welcomed Pope John Paul II in 1987, hosted the Republican National Convention in 1988 and provided shelter for more than 30,000 people during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After closing 13 months for repairs, the “Domecoming” on Sept. 25, 2006, saw U2 and Green Day perform “The Saints Are Coming” before a Saints-Falcons game that began with Steve Gleason’s blocked punt and ended with a 23-3 win over Atlanta. The building was renamed the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in a 2011 deal with the Saints and then became the Caesars Superdome in 2021 in a 20-year, $138 million agreement. Last year, the Dome completed a $560 million renovation designed to improve the visitor experience and
the building.
Louis Prima often played his brother’s 500 Club on Bourbon Street. FILE PHOTO
4040 under
TWO THOUSAND TWENTY FIVE
Chase Cassine, 35
Licensed Clinical Social Worker, AbsoluteCare
When Chase Cassine was 7 years old, he was fascinated by Dr. Phil talking psychology on Oprah, which he watched not too far from his father’s shelf packed with self-help books.
“I came from a family that talks about feelings,” Cassine says, rebuking the stodgy old adage about children. “I grew up where you can be seen and heard.”
It’s this kind of sharing that’s essential to Cassine’s work. Whether it’s with clientele or his interviews with various media outlets, Cassine feels like sharing a bit about himself when it’s “clinically relevant” or essential to gaining trust, especially with communities that are understandably wary of therapy.
“I have to see me to know that it can be me,” Cassine says about Black representation in psychology, citing Dr. Jessica Clemons and Dr. Corey Hébert as inspirations. He believes this is the key to his success with Black male clients, although he serves all kinds of people during his 120 therapy sessions per month.
COVID lockdown and Cassine couldn’t attend his favorite activity in the world, second lines, so he had time to write.
BY JAKE CLAPP, WILL COVIELLO, JENNIFER ODELL, LIAM PIERCE, KAYLEE POCHE, MADDIE SPINNER AND SARAH RAVITS
PHOTOS BY KAT KIMBALL
IF IT’S HOT ENOUGH TO COOK AN EGG on the sidewalk and the tourists are as rare as a 7th Ward Falcons fan, it can mean only one thing – it’s 40 under 40 season!
Once again, our readers nominated some absolutely outstanding folks to be part of Gambit’s annual celebration of New Orleans’ best and brightest under the ripe old age of 40. From entrepreneurs and lawyers to musicians and chefs, this year’s list is chock full of amazing people who are making our community a better place.
Congratulations to all the honorees, and a sincere thank you to all the Gambit readers who took time out to bring these great folks to our attention. Without further adieu, here’s the 2025 class of 40 under 40, presented in no particular order.
Cassine’s mother died of breast cancer eight years ago this month, and in 2020, he had an opportunity to do something he’d always wanted: write his own self-help book. “The Sweetest Therapy,” published in 2021, is about how baking got him through his grief. It was during the
Ariel Riley, better known as 504icygrl, has stayed busy in the year and a half since moving home to New Orleans after several years in Los Angeles. She’s released several projects, including the albums “Fried” and “Smoke Some” with her partner PoppyH, a Carnival-themed EP, “Rollin’ with the Krewe” and the solo project “Caked Up.” Earlier this year, she hit the road on a headlining tour.
Riley also has joined Raj Smoove’s Gentilly Agency, and she and PoppyH have used their Krewe da Label — an outlet for their music and
“The Sweetest Therapy” opened doors in the media world, and Cassine has become a kind of psychology influencer in a way. Cassine has been interviewed by USA Today, The Washington Post, CNBC, Essence, Newsweek and Men’s Health, among many other publications — on topics ranging from grief to generational differences, screen addiction, self-care, nausea after sex and tattoo therapy and more.
shows — to organize their own events, like the NOLA Secret Sesh series, to connect people. Sesh events were inspired by events they went to in L.A. and Las Vegas, “where it’s a nice party with entertainment and basically somewhere people can smoke and enjoy smoking,” Riley says.
Secret Sesh events are usually outdoor parties with DJs and rappers, arts vendors and food. In just the past few months, there’s been pool parties, a barbecue, a “soul sesh” with Kr3wcial and Pro$per Jones and a 4/20 “MegaSesh” co-hosted with the Nola Reggae Festival. And past editions have been organized around standup comedy.
“A big goal in it is to spread positivity and inspire other people to do things like it,” Riley says.
Riley grew up in a music-loving household on the West Bank in the early 2000s, and her mom exposed her to a lot of local hip-hop. After moving to L.A. in 2018, Riley got into the recording booth herself when her friend had a little extra studio time. It went well, and she booked her own session the next day.
Taking inspiration from Nicki Minaj and Young Money records, Riley’s music is full of swagger, emphatic boasting and fun as she raps about weed, sex and bankrolls. And she’s always had a subversive streak, using lots of pink and album designs influenced by Lisa Frank and Bratz.
Her latest album, “Caked Up,” was well received, including a spotlight by Pitchfork, and Riley is working on finishing music that didn’t make it onto the project.
Musician; Event Producer
Daniel Harris, 35
Co-founder and Director, Winston Rhea Scholars
For kids in foster care, “change is constant,” says Daniel Harris, who grew up in South Carolina’s foster care system and saw firsthand how years of uncertainty can negatively affect teens as they transition into adulthood.
But he also saw how the love, support and steady presence of caring adults can make a major difference. Unlike many of his fellow group home residents, Harris was lucky enough to develop strong relationships with two adults: his legal guardian Catherine Rhea and his high school basketball coach Winston Williams.
Both helped him navigate his way into adulthood and beyond. They became his surrogate family, celebrating his wins, helping him learn from his mistakes and providing a stable foundation from which he was able to grow and mature, Harris says.
They also served as the inspiration for the nonprofit Harris launched with his wife, Katie, in 2021. Though it was conceived as a scholarship for foster kids aging out of the system, Winston Rhea Scholars has no GPA requirements and provides support that extends far beyond funding.
Harris says he developed the program in consultation with Son of a Saint founder Sonny Lee III. At its heart, the program aims to mimic the broad support Winston and Rhea gave Harris as a teen and young adult, offering its 10 scholars four years of real-life guidance, emotional connection and community — as well as funding — as they move into adulthood.
Harris, meanwhile, remains close with Winston and Rhea, both of whom serve on the organization’s board. “I’m very lucky to have them in my life,” he says.
Andrea “Dre” Glass, 38
Owner, Once Around the Kitchen and Cloud Brine Creative
Dre Glass is not just someone who puts hot sauce on everything.
She actually makes her own — along with pickled products, jellies and jams — as part of her business Once Around the Kitchen.
“Even though I make hot sauces, I still have like 12 in the door,” she says. “I’m very particular, like wine pairing, with my hot sauce pairing.”
Glass grew up on a farm in Ontario, where learning to make these products “came with the territory.” She started her career in the winemaking business, traveling around the world from New Zealand to Argentina. But it was New Orleans that stole her heart, and she’s called the city home for the last 13 years.
Glass started Once Around the Kitchen right before the pandemic. As a bartender, she started cooking en masse — channeling her Italian ancestry — and bringing quarts of food to local bars so that folks “weren’t just going home and eating like slices of turkey over the sink at 4 in the morning,” she says.
During the pandemic, she made the meals donation-based and began creating meal baskets. Around the fall of 2021, she started focusing on packaged goods over hot food. On July 7, she launched an online store. Over the last couple of years, Glass has organized several art markets, including the monthly Beats and
Brine since April 2024. The events, usually at Pirogue’s Whiskey Bayou in Arabi, feature a DJ and a bartender from another bar who puts together an original cocktail menu using one of Glass’ products and a local spirit from Porchjam Distillery.
After years of participating and running markets, she’s become keenly aware of the difficulties of being a small maker and has worked to help other small and micro-business owners navigate the space, particularly the city’s broken regulatory system. As a result, in March, she started Cloud Brine Creative, an event and consulting company.
“I think that rather than competing with each other, it’s always better to work together,” Glass says.
Natalie Rupp, 34
Founder, Trans Income Project
When Natalie Rupp would hear a fellow transgender person needed money for things like rent or medical bills, she would pitch in what she could.
A former economist, Rupp believed the best way to help people in need was by giving them money, with no strings attached.
That turned into the Trans Income Project, which Rupp started informally two years ago and has since become a nonprofit. In a few short years, the group has been able to give out around $60,000 directly to the trans community in Louisiana, Rupp says.
“We are the only no barrier, guaranteed cash program for the trans community in the country, as far as I can tell, particularly one that’s run by community,” she says.
The nonprofit also runs a weekly free hot meal delivery program. So far, Rupp estimates they’ve been able to help hundreds of trans folks through their programming.
With recent news that Louisiana Medicaid has stopped reimbursing gender-affirming care prescriptions, the organization is now focusing on helping trans people pay for their health care, including everything from hormone replacement therapy to massage therapy.
“We’ve got our own backs because the government is telling us they don’t have ours,” she says.
Rupp is from Pennsylvania but has called Louisiana home since she was 20. She’s lived in New Orleans since around 2014.
She also does policy advocacy work, including helping draft a new law that protects sex workers from being arrested by the New Orleans Police Department if they report crimes committed against them while on the job. The city council passed it in May. She recently helped write the trans rights section of the United Nation’s Universal Periodic Review.
Rupp will start at Loyola Law School in the fall.
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Michael Yang, 23
Founder, Culinary Medicine Initiative Medical student, Tulane University
Michael Yang, who is about to be a first-year medical student, launched the Culinary Medicine Initiative during his junior year at Tulane University through the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine. The student-run, free cooking and STEM education program has already reached more than 300 young people, teaching them about the link between food and health.
The Culinary Medicine Initiative also collaborates with local organizations and covers topics related to wellness, including exercise physiology, food allergies, digestive anatomy and hands-on cooking.
Yang is the son of Chinese immigrants and grew up in Los Angeles, experimenting with both traditional and modern recipes.
He was a natural leader early on — as a kid he was an avid fan of the Food Network and taught cooking classes to his Boy Scout troop. He also had an affinity for first aid.
Now, Yang is blending his culinary passion with his path in medicine. After graduating from college, he earned a Fulbright Scholarship to get a master’s degree in nutrition and food science in England before returning to Tulane for medical school.
“Everyone wants to be healthy, everyone wants to live the best lives they can,” Yang says. “If we can introduce (young people) early on, through our free classes, and tie in these concepts, it impacts their everyday lives.”
Talia Livneh, 34
Senior Program Director, Rooted School Foundation
Talia Livneh thought she would go into civil engineering when she left Lexington, Massachusetts, for Carnegie Mellon University. But after graduating, she chose to follow many of her relatives’ lead and go into teaching.
She entered Teach for America and was placed in a position teaching math at Helen Cox High School (now closed) in Jefferson Parish. She immediately knew it was the right choice.
“I fell in love with teaching,” Livneh says. “Like engineering, there’s lots of dynamic problem solving, lots of interesting situations and people. I felt like I was using my engineering brain, just in a different way.”
After three years at Cox and another year in a New Orleans
charter, she joined a small team in founding the Rooted School. Their program sought to educate students and prepare them for career tracks, so in addition to English, science, math and social studies, the school offers classes in digital tech, and things that could open doors to fields like cyber security, 3D printing and software.
Rooted has grown to include schools in Vancouver and Indianapolis and will open two more schools.
Livneh also is administrating the school’s pioneering $50 Study program, an initiative exploring guaranteed income. Coming out of the pandemic shutdowns, they noticed kids missing school. Students said it was about resources, in situations where they were staying home to provide childcare, or picking up work to supplement family income. They piloted a program for 10 kids in 2020-2021, and the most recent program had 250 kids.
Students receive $50 per week for 40 weeks with only one requirement — that they stay in school. It’s helped students improve attendance, focus better on classes and take control of their lives. And Livneh helps them tell their own stories via a podcast and media stories.
Ana Castro was named one of Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chefs in 2022. It was fast recognition of her work at Lengua Madre, the Lower Garden District tasting menu restaurant.
Last year, she opened her own restaurant, Acamaya, with her sister Lydia Castro in Bywater, and they are quickly building a national reputation for it.
Castro was born in Texas but grew up in the Satelite neighborhood of Mexico City. There, she developed her love of food in her grandmother’s kitchen, and she later pursued professional training at Le Cordon Bleu in Mexico City. She has since cooked in India, Copenhagen and New York.
A stint in New York had her feeling burnt out, and she decided to make a change. After a break in Mexico, she moved to New Orleans, where Lydia lived, and rebooted.
At Lengua Madre, Castro designed dishes and menus around Mexican flavors and inspirations from growing up with family as well as experiences elsewhere. She was a finalist for a James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef: South.
At Acamaya, diners enter to see the open kitchen and a modern airy space framed by tile and breeze blocks. Mexican flavors, spirits and visual aesthetics inform the restaurant, though the menu also highlights Louisiana’s coastal bounty. It recently became the first restaurant reviewed by the New York Times’ new national food critic.
“Things are going great. The restaurant has been really well received locally and nationally and we’re having a lot of fun,” Castro says. “A year went by really quickly, and it feels like we’ve only scratched the surface of what we can do.”
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Ana Castro, 36
Chef and Owner, Acamaya
It wasn’t long after Nikki learned how to walk that she started dancing at a studio at just 3 years old. In 2023, after saving her second childhood dance studio from the brink of collapse, Landix became the owner of Lakeview Dance Company.
“I hate when people call me the boss,” Landix says. “We’re a team, and I know that what we’re doing together is magical.”
Landix grew up in Algiers and attended Carolyn Diecedue Dance Academy, but her dance practice was waylaid by Hurricane Katrina when she was 11. It
Danny Cherry Jr., 30
Whether he’s covering the rise of Christian nationalism and what that means for Louisiana in articles for Antigravity or plotting a follow-up to his debut crime novel, 2024’s “The Pike Boys,” Danny Cherry Jr. says his writing is all “intertwined” around one thing.
“I’m a humanist,” the New Orleans native explains. “I view people as intrinsically flawed,” not good or bad.
As such, he’s equally interested in examining how, for example, members of the religious right can justify actions and policies their religion expressly rejects as wrong.
Although he didn’t initially plan to pursue writing outside of fiction and other creative work, Cherry has inched further into journalism this past year, publishing a series of thought-provoking explorations of the rise of fascism for local outlets like Antigravity and national platforms including Politico.
“I feel like we’re in an all-hands-on-deck situation,” he says, referencing the increasingly dire political climate and mainstream media’s avoidance of terms like “Christian nationalism.”
Cherry’s willingness to tackle controversy while examining what makes people tick certainly trans-
wasn’t until she attended Mt. Carmel that she joined the 8th grade dance team under the guidance of the former owner of Lakeview Dance Company, who suggested she take classes at the studio.
“I [convinced] my grandmother to let me go all the way out to Metairie after school,” Landix says.
After graduating high school, Landix continued to help out at Lakeview Dance Company while she was in college, teaching upwards of 13 preschool dance classes. The pandemic wasn’t kind to the studio, despite it providing Zoom classes. Pre-COVID, the studio had 250 students, and by the time Landix took over in 2023, the number had dropped to 100. Now, there are 170, with Landix’s goal of reaching 200 by September within reach.
Lakeview Dance’s prior owner was pursuing law school and Landix was a full-time preschool teacher when she was offered to buy the studio. And Landix at first ran the studio — putting her business major and minor in marketing to good use — while also teaching full time at Louise Hayem Manheim Gates Preschool up until last March.
Landix has since expanded adult classes at Lakeview Dance and hosts “parents’ night out” parties to help give studio parents a childcare break. She also has helped diversify the studio and built out the studio as a community space. Landix teaches preschool ballet, tap and hip-hop dance, her favorite style.
“I love teaching the little kids,” Landix says. “We don’t really dance like that, but we jump around and move our bodies.”
lates into his fiction work, which he hopes to focus on more in the coming months.
It also makes his leadership role in Third Lantern Lit that much more interesting, given the opportunities for discussion the group builds into its programming. A self-described “cowriting community collective,” the nonprofit hosts events that add a social dynamic to the usually solitary act of writing. The idea is to foster a local literary community for writers of any stage in their work. Events are neither cost-prohibitive nor socially exclusive, focusing instead on forming peer connections and encouraging growth.
As the child of carnies, Brooke Paulus spent her earliest years living in an RV and traveling around California. She loved to perform, and her mom would enter her into beauty pageants in each city they went to, as well as commercials, which ultimately helped put her through college.
With that backstory, there was little chance Paulus was going to live a boring, cookie cutter life.
“I have like nine jobs,” she says.
Paulus is the booking agent at Saturn Bar, DJs as part of the collective Solid Gold, teaches a daily after-school program, bartends and hosts events like Read the Room, a fresh take on the traditional book club. Since around 2020, she’s also been a member of LSD Clownsystem, an LCD Soundsystem cover band where the band members and audience alike dress as clowns.
Paulus attributes it to growing up in the ’90s. “There’s this kind of Barbie syndrome where you want to be an astronaut and a cowgirl and a doctor and a lawyer and all these different things,” she says.
They all might sound random at first, but there’s a throughline.
“Everything I do, whether it’s with the kids in my classroom or adults on my dance floor, I just want people to feel connection and love and leave happier or more in touch with the world and their community than they were before,” she says.
At her events, the goal is “partying with a purpose,” and Paulus has been able to raise money for causes like One Book, One New Orleans and Louisiana Books 2 Prisoners. She’s also seen firsthand how community shows up for each other in a time of need, including for her family after her dad died.
“That’s why I love New Orleans,” Paulus says. “Community is really at the center of everything.”
Brooke Paulus, 36
Owner, Lakeview Dance Company
Nikki Landix, 31
Novelist; Journalist; Board President, Third Lantern Lit
Event Planner; Musician; DJ; Educator
Ingrid Victoria Ruth Anderson, 38
Makeup Artist; Fashion Designer; Founder, Human Horse Races
In creating the Human Horse Races, a local Thanksgiving Day alternative to going to the racetrack, Ingrid Victoria Ruth Anderson drew on her experiences producing events and a range of artistic and fashion endeavors.
“My world is all about character and world creation and inviting people to play,” Anderson says. At the event in Easton Park in Mid-City, attendees sign up to race as horses or jockeys. They represent one of five stables Anderson created based on social caricatures, like the glamor-hungry Star Skufflers or the Patchouli Dusters stables. There are adult and kid races and prizes, and the event raises money for horse rescue farms. Last year, 2,900 people attended, and in five years, they’ve donated $16,000, Anderson says.
“I am into parties with purposes,” Anderson says. “You’re already on a soapbox; why not do something good with it?”
Anderson has pursued all sorts of creative projects since graduating from Loyola University New Orleans. That included producing pop-up art and music events in warehouses. She was also a vendor at the Frenchmen Street art market, where she sold crocheted beards, women’s underwear with pockets and other novelty items she created. While growing up in Chalmette, Anderson got into painting and drawing and working with textiles. Sewing developed her interest in costuming, especially with fantasy and special effects make-up.
People hire her to make their costumes and to do makeup for marching krewes, as well as advertising and photography work and weddings.
Makeup and fashion are Anderson’s main focus. She’s also dabbled in bodypainting and recently painted a mural. She’s now planning the sixth Human Horse Races, where she will introduce carnival games this year.
Marlon “Chicken” Williams, 36
Owner, Chicken’s Kitchen and The Coop
Marlon Williams started cooking at the age of 4. His specialties back then included Kraft mac and cheese, bologna sandwiches and boiled potatoes and pickled meat.
“I was turning the stove on,” he says.
It wasn’t until college that Williams really began to hone his cooking skills. Playing football for several schools including Nicholls State, he saw it as a way to “watch my diet and my budget,” he says. He drew from his experiences in the kitchen with his mother and grandmother as well as cooking shows, while also adding his own twist.
“I went to Food Network University,” he says.
That coincided with the early days of Instagram, which helped Williams land his first catering gig. From there, he spent five years catering from his home and selling plates weekly.
In 2017, Williams started doing an annual fresh fruit lemonade stand with his kids. It was so popular that in 2020, there were more than 90 cars waiting in line by the time they started at noon, he says.
Clearly, there was momentum, so he opened his first brick-and-mortar restaurant, Chicken’s Kitchen, in Gretna, later that year.
Williams has a large social media following, and his business model revolves around hype. There’s a different menu of soul food each day, and the first customer in line gets a free plate lunch. The restaurant opens weekdays at 10:30 a.m., and when they sell out
Even though Briana Whetstone grew up in a family of artists and always loved the arts, she knew from age 7 she wanted to be a lawyer. And yes, she knows that’s “weird.”
She grew up outside of Montgomery, Alabama, and came to Tulane for college. She then spent two years in San Francisco, working for George Lucas’ produc-
for the day, they close, meaning they often have a line waiting outside before they open.
He opened a breakfast and lunch spot, The Coop, last September.
Williams also hosts community events and school supply drives, and all summer long he’s been offering free meals to kids under 16 at his restaurants. He estimates they’ve given away 5,500 meals as of mid-July.
“We wouldn’t be nothing without all the people that decide to support us,” he says.
tion company Lucasfilm — “because who doesn’t want to work for Star Wars?” — handling copyright applications for video games and coming up with the company’s social media policy circa 2008.
“I was still in love with New Orleans, but I also felt like I was going to marry the city and I was too young, so I got cold feet,” Whetstone says.
So it was back to New Orleans for Tulane Law. “I already had all the T-shirts,” she says with a laugh.
During law school, Whetstone and a friend started to put together workshops for artists and musicians, teaching them the basics of copyright and contract law. Since the end of the pandemic, she’s been teaching seven-week workshops with drummer and vocalist Lou Hill through the Ella Project’s Crescendo program.
One of the biggest issues Whetstone sees is people making music or art with another person without realizing each person has full rights to that.
“I always use the example of you’ve now had a baby with that person, and y’all have to co-parent that baby forever. You might not like their style, and there’s only limited ways you can stop them,” she warns. “So don’t get into these kinds of relationships willy nilly.”
Whetstone also is part of the Krewe of King James and helped start the Krewe Boheme parade, taking on an advisory role in recent years.
“I’m not from here, but I’m going to die here,” she says. “So I just feel a sense of responsibility to give back to New Orleans however I can.”
LadyBEAST, 39
Circus arts performer and escape artist LadyBEAST has wowed audiences with all sorts of feats. One of the most spectacular was an escape from a straitjacket while upside down, 100-feet in the air, hanging from a hot air balloon in 2018 at Burning Man.
LadyBEAST loves to revive old circus tricks, and she’s mastered bottle walking, in which she
Khiry Armstead, 33
Musician; Actor; Teacher, Isidore Newman School
Khiry Armstead moved around to different parts of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish growing up, leaving him feeling untethered to any one neighborhood in the city.
But it also has given him some freedom to break out of expectations of what a creative from New Orleans should be.
“I do a lot of things, and I really believe in that ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ kind of thing,” Armstead says. “I am so OK at so many things, but I feel so lucky to be able to try out many different things.”
Under his hip-hop project Kaye the Beast, Armstead is a gifted lyricist and producer, often winding larger concepts into his albums, like exploring the price of notoriety on “The Spaceman” or the range of love and lust on the EP “I Like You … I Think We Should Go Together.”
And then there’s his theater career. Armstead began acting while a student at Tulane University and developed his own theater works. He has appeared in productions with a number of local companies over the years, including the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane and the Promethean Theatre Co. — with whom he shared in a Big Easy Award for Best Ensemble.
An ensemble member of The NOLA Project, Armstead occasionally has directed pieces for the company, including its recent “Clown
steps from one Champagne bottle top to another or a mix of bottles of different sizes. It was first popularized in circuses touring the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
LadyBEAST grew up in Philadelphia and trained in sports, including track and field. She had dreams of becoming a professional athlete and also of becoming an artist, and she found circus arts combined both goals.
She does aerial acts on trapeze, ropes and other apparatuses. She also likes Harry Houdini-style escape acts. Escaping from a water tank was another feat she performed.
During the pandemic, LadyBEAST joined the touring Venardos Circus. She did her bottle-walking act and a balancing act on stacked chairs for audiences across the country.
She has produced shows, such as Vaude d’Gras and more recently circus and burlesque spectacles under the marquis Vaudeville Revival, which feature local and visiting circus arts performers. She also trains other circus and burlesque performers
Earlier this year, she was gifted the original Venardos Circus tent, big enough for 300 seats. LadyBEAST is now working on bringing a full, locally produced circus under a big top to New Orleans and on tour as well.
Bar 2,” about a bar in the seedy underworld of mobster clowns.
He’s also a teacher. He’s been with Isidore Newman School since 2018 and is now a full-time substitute with the school, working from pre-K to 5th grade and teaching everything from coding and math to Spanish.
Long influenced by actor and rapper Donald Glover and his Childish Gambino moniker — for his music and for his ability to work in different fields — as Armstead has gotten older, his aspirations have turned closer to home.
“I love my city so much. I want to be like Kermit Ruffins,” he says. “He can go anywhere in Europe and sell out, then come home, do a show at his own venue and then make people dinner.”
Interim Executive Director, Vietnamese Initiatives in Economics Training
“Community isn’t where you live,” Alexis Nguyen says. “It’s who shows up for you and who you show up for.”
That’s especially true in the Michoud area of New Orleans East, where Nguyen’s family settled in 1975 alongside thousands of other Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon. Today, the neighborhood remains home to a vibrant yet isolated Vietnamese community.
“Showing up is so deeply rooted in our culture that you never have to question if you have a support team,” she says.
Nguyen clearly takes that ethic to heart. In August 2024, she took over as interim executive director of VIET, or Vietnamese Initiatives in Economics Training. Her mother, former City Councilmember Cyndi Nguyen, co-founded the nonprofit in 2001 to support members of the community facing challenges with English proficiency. For more than 20 years, VIET has operated a wide range of programs including financial literacy education, counseling and fitness as well as assistance with tax preparation, Medicaid and Medicare applications and resource guidance for small businesses.
When Nguyen stepped into her current role last year, VIET faced a slew of challenges and was no longer reaching enough of the people it was designed for.
“There was a lot of disconnect within the different communities we serve,” she says. “A lot of people thought we only [worked with] Vietnamese people, but that’s never been the goal.”
Determined to reestablish VIET as an inclusive community resource center, Nguyen overhauled the website, social media and other communications platforms. She then secured new funding that allowed VIET to update its programs, making them more accessible and equitable.
“Everybody’s welcome here,” Nguyen says. “It doesn’t matter the color of your skin, the language you speak — everybody goes through some form of struggle, and nobody should be left behind.”
Alexis Nguyen, 25
Circus Arts Performer; Producer
Tenaj Jackson Wallace, 36
Artistic Director, The NOLA Project; Actress; Dancer; Massage Therapist
When Tenaj Wallace became The NOLA Project’s artistic director last August, she didn’t want to pick mainstream plays for the theater company to put on.
Sure, they do some classics, “but we just have to do things that kind of resonate with our little wild side,” Wallace says.
Wallace is taking the same approach with revamping the company’s programming in schools. Now dubbed “Stories that Matter,” they’ll first be performing ‘A Lesson Before Dying,’ influenced by the story of Willie Francis, a young Black man who survived a failed electrocution in Louisiana in 1946.
“I’m basically trying to sneak my way into all the schools to bring them theater ... that’s actually going to resonate,” she says.
Wallace, an actress and dancer, has been performing since she was a child dancing at Saint Augustine Catholic Church in Treme. She was in “Treme,” “American Horror Story,” a Lifetime movie — her mother’s personal favorite — and recently the box-office hit “Sinners,” which she originally only knew by its code name “Grilled Cheese.”
“I was like, ‘Oh, this sounds like fun. Maybe it’ll be my next Lifetime movie.’ And then I show up, and I’m like, ‘Oh ... that’s Michael B. Jordan up there,” she says.
When Wallace moved back to the 7th Ward, she noticed people looking for food in the trash. She’d learned from her mother running a food bank and started collecting donations and saving any money she could to buy food to
give away. That eventually turned into a community fridge and free store. She also runs a toy drive around Christmas.
“Nobody eats out of the trash around me,” she says. Somehow, Wallace, the mother of a toddler, also has been running a massage business out of her home for the last couple of years.
“There’s no time for anything I’m doing,” she says. “But my little silly brain is like, ‘You have to do everything.’ ”
Ryan Rogers, 36
released his second comedy album, “Girl Bye,” which also is available on OFTV.
Rogers was already deep into a successful career before turning to comedy. He grew up on the West Bank and after graduating from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, he jumped into advertising and moved to the Bay Area. By 24, he was a creative director overseeing two offices and in his jobs at Google and Pandora, he worked with clients like Disney, Mercedes and Clorox, he says.
When the pandemic hit, he was looking for life changes, including getting sober. He also wanted a more personal creative outlet. That led him to his first open mic at the Ugly Dog Saloon.
Rogers started touring, performing everywhere from gay bars in big cities to small town venues across red states, and finding common ground on everything from intoxicated misadventures to jokes about being married.
While Rogers produces and hosts several local shows, he also founded LGBTLOL to amplify queer comics and voices. It’s quickly become the largest queer comedy festival in the nation, with more than 50 visiting and local comics at the most recent festival.
Rogers also is building the LGBTLOL brand, and under its guise, he’s been producing the queer comedy portions of festivals elsewhere, including CloudTop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Sno Jam in South Dakota. With the brand, he’s helping queer comics elsewhere get on stage and get noticed.
Comedian; Founder, LGBTLOL Queer Comedy Fest
Ryan Rogers didn’t launch his comedy career until the middle of the pandemic, but the laughs are coming fast now. Rogers recently wrapped up the fourth edition of the LGBTLOL Queer Comedy Fest, and the following week he
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Lilly Meissner, 33
Designer and Founder, Relic Room; Backstage Tour Manager, Lana Del Rey
As a music industry professional and the backstage touring manager for Lana Del Rey, Lilly Meissner jokes that she is accustomed to “coordinating chaos.”
And although her career takes her around the globe, Meissner remains rooted in her hometown of New Orleans.
In May she started Relic Room, a line of hair and fashion accessories that exude an eerie, swampy elegance, with celestial elements and, of course, alligators. Meissner says her designs, which she hand-draws in the early stages of the process, reflect the aesthetic of New Orleans.
“It’s beautiful, but there’s a darkness, and there’s grit,” she says. “There’s a dark opulence that I really wanted to bring out.”
Meissner’s accessories quickly gained international attention after Lana Del Rey wore some head-turning gator-themed hair clips to the Met
Founder and CEO, Cleaved Diagnostics
Just months after completing her PhD in bioinnovation at Tulane University, Chandler Monk is already poised to help reduce lifelong deafness and cognitive disabilities among newborns.
That’s thanks to her pioneering development of a rapid, point-of-care test for congenital cytomegalovirus
Gala as a tribute to her new husband, swamp tour guide and Louisiana native Jeremy Dufrene.
Still, Meissner wants her line of “everyday heirlooms” to be accessible to everyone, not just celebs. And her goal is to maintain ethical sourcing, high quality and affordability.
“My goal is to make these Southern Gothic luxury (items) that people can wear on a normal day, to a party, on stage or at a Mardi Gras event,” she says. “It’s not just for a dark aesthetic. I think anyone can put a gold alligator in their hair and it would look really cool.”
(CMV), a common yet under-detected virus that’s the leading cause of both disorders.
Monk led her team’s development of the enzyme-based diagnostic technology that radically improves the accuracy of screenings while reducing the cost and increasing the speed of detection involved with traditional tests for the virus.
Although CMV is easily treatable with anti-viral medication if detected early, Monk says, Louisiana is not currently screening all newborns for the virus, in part because of the traditional tests’ cost and limited accuracy.
Last fall, Monk launched her own startup, Cleaved Diagnostics, using a $50,000 prototyping grant from Tulane to move the new tests forward toward marketability. Armed with a brick-and-mortar lab in downtown New Orleans, Cleaved is now working with the university and state of Minnesota, where testing for congenital CMV is universal, while beginning to research diagnostics for other diseases, including mononucleosis and herpes simplex virus.
For Monk, success “came with a lot of community support and therapy,” she adds, before letting out a chuckle, “and tricking your brain into not realizing you’re working as much as you are.”
Nina Balan, 35
Director of Strategic Initiatives, The Beach at UNO
Nina Balan credits her home country of Moldova for her success in New Orleans. The lessons growing up in the landlocked post-Soviet nation have carried her a long way.
“The level of perseverance and ambition that I learned from my community,” Balan says. “You just hustle, and it pays off.”
While attending the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Italy, Balan participated in an exchange program, which placed her at the University of New Orleans. At first, Balan was reluctant to come to New Orleans, but UNO soon became an anchor for Balan. It was not only the basis for completing her undergrad, but it’s where she got her master’s degree in hospitality and tourism administration and then a Ph.D. in urban studies, with a focus on tourism’s impact on climate change. And now she works for UNO.
She credits her internship with New Orleans and Company as a master’s student for exposing her to the needs of Louisiana. “I’ve always had a soft heart for communities that are disproportionately affected by life,” Balan says. “So it makes sense why I ended up here.”
Now, Balan’s role is to connect UNO students to eye-opening opportunities like her internship. As the director of strategic initiatives at The Beach at
UNO, she fosters partnerships between academia and relevant industries, so talented graduates can enter various fields, including cyber security, hospitality, the Navy, AI, energy and various entrepreneurial endeavors.
However, her passion project is climate change. She led the development of workforce programs like Wind Scholars, which awards scholarships to students pursuing renewable energy, and KidWind, which equips Orleans Parish high school educators with resources to teach about wind energy.
Balan also speaks five languages, was a professional ballroom dancer, mentors students on renewable energy, is a board member of the New Orleans chapter of the American Planning Association and Women’s Energy Network South East Louisiana and Heart N Hands, and is an avid biker. That’s that Moldovan work ethic.
Danovan Calhoun-Bettis, 35
Around this time last year, the New Orleans City Council passed a guaranteed minimum pay rate for musicians playing city-funded events. Danovan Calhoun-Bettis, a musician and the director of engagement and partnership at the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans (MaCCNO), had a major role in crafting that ordinance.
The experience “let me know that I was in the right position for the things I was trying to do,” says Bettis. Though the ordinance applies only to city-funded events, Bettis calls it “a starting point.”
Born and raised in New Orleans, Bettis began playing drums in church before joining the Marian Central Catholic Middle School marching band. From there, he attended St. Augustine High School, where he rose to head drum major for the Marching 100.
While going to Xavier University of Louisiana, Bettis started the 3rd Degree, which blends brass, hip-hop, R&B and funk. Today he also performs with T-Ray The Violinist, the Big Fun Brass Band and other groups on a freelance basis.
He knew what he wanted to do from an early age, as proven by a letter he wrote to his future self in first grade.
“In my letter, I wrote I wanted to be a famous jazz musician [and] travel the world ... it all happened,” Bettis says.
Bettis was hired by MaCCNO in 2023, and he saw his own goals to advocate for musicians aligned with the group’s support for local culture, public policy and social justice.
Bettis knows firsthand how hard it is to get by in New Orleans, where musicians are severely underpaid while their music is celebrated. He aims to help musicians better understand the business aspects of their work and how to advocate for themselves.
“The goal for me, before there’s another version of Katrina or something like that, I’d like to provide the resources and the tools for the people to be able to, if they want to move, they can move and have a sustainable life — or if they want to stay and thrive here, they should be able to be able a part of that thriving number,” Bettis says.
A life-changing moment came for Samantha Fish when she was 17 years old.
Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, Fish was “very, very shy. I would cry if I had to give a book report in front of people,” she says.
But then one weekend, Fish and her dad were at a backyard party and watching a band play. Fish had picked up the guitar when she was 15, wanting to rock like AC/DC and loving music by Stevie Ray Vaughan. So when Fish saw the guitar player’s thin, Chet Atkins-style Gibson, she had to take a look during the band’s set break.
The guitarist handed her the guitar, turned on the speaker and told her to play something.
“I didn’t have time to really think about it — if I did, I probably wouldn’t have done it,” Fish says. “But I remember it being the most exhilarating and also terrifying and painful experience. It wasn’t good, but ... people were really encouraging.”
Fish knew she wanted to chase that feeling — and she’s followed it into an award-winning, globe-touring music career rooted in high-powered blues rock.
She moved to New Orleans in 2017 and has achieved several new milestones in the last few years. Her 2023 album with Jesse Dayton, “Death Wish Blues,” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Fish was then featured on the cover of Guitar World alongside rock icon Slash and rising blues star Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.
And she twice opened for The Rolling Stones in 2024, first at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and again on The Stones’ tour stop in Ridgedale, Missouri.
Fish released her latest album, “Paper Doll,” an electrifying mix of blues, rock and soul, a week before she played Jazz Fest again this year. Since then, she’s been on tour in Europe and across the U.S.
“I have a lot of dreamy type stuff I would love to do, but at the end of the day, the thing that’s most important is to have that freedom in making the music you want to make,” Fish says.
Musician
Samantha Fish, 36
Addiction Detox
Inpatient Residential
Partial Hospitalization IOP (IntensiveOutpatient Program) MAT (Medication-Assisted Addiction Treatments)
Dr. Nicole Ulrich, 38
Reproductive Endocrinologist and Fertility Specialist; Director of Advocacy, The Fertility Institute; Board President, Louisiana Fertility Alliance
Countless would-be parents in Louisiana face a complex network of barriers limiting their access to reproductive medicine each year. Dr. Nicole Ulrich wants to change that. Through her practice and advocacy work, the reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist is working to bring a much-needed dose of equity to the state’s fertility treatment landscape.
Louisianans struggling with infertility can face significantly higher hurdles in their journeys to conceive than people in other states, like insurance policies that either don’t cover treatment or reimburse male and female patients at different amounts for the same procedure, Ulrich says.
Laws related to surrogates are among the nation’s strictest, allowing only heterosexual married couples to enter into surrogate agreements. Louisiana’s abortion ban has sparked ongoing controversy and confusion about what kind of care is allowed.
Ulrich says the closure of rural hospitals and women’s health centers only compounds problems in a state with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation. With cuts to Medicaid, the situation could only become worse. In her advocacy work at The Fertility Institute and through her leadership at the Louisiana Fertility Alliance, Ulrich has voiced the concerns of providers and patients seeking clarity in the law and greater access to fertility care. Her campaigns have already helped push through legislation like Senate Bill 156, which clarifies questions around embryonic and fetal personhood and becomes law this summer. As Ulrich sees it, fertility treatment “is health care,” plain and simple. “Having this technology in existence and preventing a large portion of the population from accessing it does not feel right or fair to me,” she says.
Marguerite Sheffer, 38
Fiction Writer; Educator; Co-founder, Third Lantern Lit
Nov. 5, 2024, wasn’t likely to be a dull news day, but that’s when Marguerite Sheffer’s debut story collection, “The Man in the Banana Trees,” was released. And it got attention. The book won the 2024 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was a finalist for the 2025 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize.
The collection ranges from stories set in the Gulf South to outer space. Its diverse array of subjects reflects the way Sheffer taught literature during a decade teaching history and English in a small high school in Oakland, California. She had students read everything from Ray Bradbury and science fiction to Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” a collection of stories about soldiers in the Vietnam War.
“I liked teaching ethical dilemmas and getting students outside of their own worlds,” Sheffer says.
She later attained a doctorate focused on design thinking and teaching creative problem solving, both to traditional students and adults in fields of social impact.
Sheffer and her family moved to New Orleans about eight years ago, in part to be near her relatives. She’s taught design thinking at Tulane University since.
Sheffer also decided to return to the creative writing she loved up through college. Maurice Carlos Ruffin encouraged her to enroll in a low-residency MFA program at Randolph College and she finished in 2023. She’s currently completing a novel.
She also co-founded writing collective Third Lantern Lit. Originally, it was for writers to meet up and share resources, and it has grown in many ways.
“I feel really lucky that a lot of the things I get to spend my time doing are genuinely creative and fun,” Sheffer says. “At Third Lantern, we host the events we’d want to go to for fun.”
TAKEOUT and DELIVERY
Imani Gaudin, 26
Founding
Artistic Director, Gaudanse
Imani Gaudin launched Gaudanse in 2020 to help bring art education to marginalized and underserved communities. The organization is a collective of interdisciplinary artists that spans dance, music, visual arts and culinary arts.
Gaudin, a New Orleans native, is a professional dancer who started performing at age 3 and studied at NOCCA as a teenager before obtaining a BFA at SUNY-Purchase. She is trained in ballet, African, modern and improvisational dance. She’s also an actor.
“I kind of tap into everything,” she says.
Gaudin’s performances often explore themes of identity, culture and human connection. As a choreographer, creative director and producer, her works have premiered locally at the Marigny Opera House and in theaters in New York. She splits her time between both cities. She also has performed internationally. In the coming months, she’ll be touring the second installment of “nanibu,” a performance that explores themes surrounding royalty.
“I live, breathe and sweat dance, and I love sharing it with other people,” she says. “It excites me that I can express myself, and it moves people ... That drives me to keep dancing, because I’m spreading joy.”
PROVIDED PHOTO BY LEIGHANN KOWALSKY
Author; Creative Writing Chair, NOCCA
From an early age, award-winning writer and educator Annell Lopez knew she wanted to tell stories. Born in the Dominican Republic, she moved to Newark, New Jersey, at 14 and later began her education career at a local high school teaching Spanish.
career. That course was a catalyst for her move to New Orleans, where she earned an MFA in creative writing at University of New Orleans while also teaching. She currently teaches creative writing at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.
Last year, she published her award-winning book “I’ll Give You a Reason,” a collection of short stories set in the rapidly gentrifying city of Newark that explores themes of grief, love, loss and identity through the lens of immigrants.
“The book explored just how devastating having to be fixated over your immigration status can be for a person,” Lopez says.
“I’ll Give You a Reason” won the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and was a finalist for the 2025 PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. Being recognized for a book about immigrants is meaningful to her, she says, especially in the current climate.
“It was a very emotional moment for me; to feel the impact that it’s having is an otherworldly type of feeling,” Lopez says.
She sees fiction writers as documentarians, too.
It wasn’t until Lopez took a creative writing class at New York University that she decided to pursue a writing
“I’m no historian, but I think as a fiction writer, we find creative ways to convey truths and capture a moment to remember for the future,” she says.
Kristiana Rae Colón, 39
Chicago native Kristiana Rae Colón began her creative writing career through local spoken-word and poetry communities. Her early involvement in poetry organizations led to her discovery of theater. She first stumbled upon her gift for playwriting during a personal poem exercise.
“I didn’t know I was writing a play until I realized the character was talking to someone else,” says Colón.
She soon fell in love with the collaborative aspects of the art. “That magic of turning words on a page, a fantasy of vision into matter, is what really got me hooked on playwriting,” Colón says.
This passion eventually expanded to the screen, where she now writes and produces for Showtime’s series
“The Chi.”
The 2014 Ferguson uprisings shifted the focus of Colón’s artistic work.
“The artistic exploration of oppression,” she says, “felt really insufficient to answer the social demands of the moment.” As a response, she and her
brother launched a grassroots organization, the #LetUsBreathe Collective in Chicago, a group of artists and activists, which offers mutual aid, abolitionist healing clinics and other programming.
After tragically losing her partner, she relocated to New Orleans in 2023 – a place she calls “the land of miracles.” She says her creative mission is to “provoke collective imagination” as she continues to “bridge ancestry, art and activism.”
When Rebecca Hollingsworth isn’t performing in stage productions, she and her husband Stephen Maher can be found slinging chicken sandwiches. The pair began running their food pop-up Bonafried 10 years ago — perfecting their signature chicken sandwich recipe long before Popeyes. Over the years, they’ve expanded their operations with a rigged vintage Wonder Bread truck and are now gearing up to open their first brick and mortar spot just a few blocks away from the Fair Grounds. It took some time to figure out how to work together, but Hollingsworth credits much of their current operation strategy to the theater.
“Once we started to run the truck like a theater, the atmosphere completely changed,” she says. “We also have a code word now if one of us gets too antsy: ‘Drink your juice, Shelby,’ from Steel Magnolias.”
She’s currently balancing her role as Maggie in a production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” with the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company. But she plans to take a step back once production wraps to focus on the new chapter, though not without some one-off cabaret performances.
Afterall, “I’ve been doing theater since I was in the womb. My mother did a play when she was pregnant with me,” Hollingsworth says. Though they’re opening a physical restaurant, Hollingsworth wants to keep up the communal energy of their early food truck days.
“Everybody eats” has been their motto since day one. Ever since COVID, they founded the “Straw Hat Special,” a pay-it-forward meal program to support food-insecure and unhoused neighbors. “It was this beautiful community that taught us how to operate and help one another out,” she says. “We’re trying to bring that attitude to the restaurant right now.”
Amanda Hampton Bravender, 36
Author; Founder, The Brave Farmers
Up until the COVID lockdown, Amanda Hampton Bravender traveled the world doing makeup for operas, musical theater and ballet. Now she’s on her way to making a honey empire.
“I want to be a face of New Orleans, a brand that people recognize, like Crystal hot sauce or Tony Chachere’s,” Bravender says. “But I also want to represent beekeeping, education and rebuilding pride in our local food systems.”
Bravender already contains all those multitudes and more: In addition to her dual professions, she’s also a mother of five and author of “Bébés, Beauty & Bees,” a book of family recipes, beauty tips and stories of her upbringing in Harvey.
She first got into beekeeping during COVID — TikTok helped fuel her thirst for bee knowledge and soon enough, she had two beehives of her own. Then friends started asking her to help them relocate bee infestations.
At one point, as she was starting out in bee removal work, a man told her “women don’t belong here.” Bravender saw it as a challenge. Enough that she soon after bought a beekeeper suit and started relocating bees to three acres of land she owns. And the honey started flowing — enough to create The Brave Farmers, her bee rescue and honey company.
India King Robins, 38
Executive Director, New Orleans
Video Access Center
When India King Robins was in college for journalism, she took a trip to New York to learn about internships in the media industry — and found out how little the industry paid.
“I needed to make more than $18,000 coming out of college,” says King Robins, a first-generation
She’s at 45 hives now, but her goal is to reach 300, which puts her in the territory of a commercial honey farm. The experience of building out her bee population landed her a book deal — which really cemented as she shifted its focus from COVID to her own personal history.
Bravender also teaches 4H classes about running beehives, gardening and harvesting honey, and she recently took a couple of teens on a bee rescue run. Where women certainly belong. college graduate. “I just wasn’t in a position to dream in that way.”
In a lot of ways, that experience informs her work at the New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC), where she uses her time at the helm of the 50-yearold nonprofit to plug its filmmakers into the film industry in livable ways.
Before King Robins, a queer Black woman, NOVAC used to be a predominantly white-led space. Since she started in 2019, she not only doubled the staff to 11 employees, but diversified it along various representation lines, including intergenerationally. She also gives employees unlimited time off (with approval) so that they can pursue their art on their own time, increased the budget by 30% and helped reinforce the pipeline from the youth programs to adult programs.
Recently, King Robins’ team helped staff the crew of the movie “Sinners” with local talent and held an early screening of the film, where director Ryan Coogler thanked NOVAC for their support.
Prior to NOVAC, King Robins worked in education, starting as a special education teacher and eventually became an assistant principal. While working full time in schools, she received her master’s in arts administration from UNO by taking night classes. In 2019, she was approached by the then-executive director of NOVAC because of the work she was doing in the community and took on the role, despite having no film experience.
Now, King Robins is producing a film series about Black maternal health and discrimination within the health system. Thanks to some classes she took at NOVAC.
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Bernell Elzey, 32
Professor, Antioch University ; Owner and Licensed Professional Counselor, Conscious Therapy and Wellness
As a counselor and educator, Bernell Elzey works in schools and in a clinical setting, specializing
in culturally sensitive counseling and empowering people from marginalized communities.
Raised by a single mother in the 7th Ward, Elzey started his career teaching English at his alma mater, Warren Easton Charter High School.
There, he noticed some of his students were struggling academically due to unmet emotional needs at home. He wanted to improve his ability to help young people succeed despite hardships in their personal lives.
“There was a burden on the students, so I wanted to focus on that and help them be secure and able to learn,” he says.
So Elzey went back to school himself, earning a master’s degree in counseling from Xavier University and a doctorate in counselor education and supervision from the University of Holy Cross. Now, he helps graduate students learn to be culturally sensitive counselors, and he also sees patients at his own practice, Conscious Therapy and Wellness.
“I have a passion for advocacy and community building,” he says. “I want to ensure all communities receive equitable opportunities to thrive.”
Kristen Rome, 39
Executive Director, Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights
The daughter of a criminal defense attorney and a hospice nurse, New Orleans native Kristen Rome comes from a family deeply dedicated to community service and social justice advocacy.
“My orientation to what I would do in life was always grounded in my family’s teachings,” Rome says. “Your work should be of service to your community, not just any community but yours.”
Early on in her career, she helped release juvenile lifer Shon Williams from the Louisiana State Penitentiary, who revealed the unjust conditions that children as young as 15 years old faced within the carceral system. This solidified her commitment to working in youth justice.
As a birth doula and executive director of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, Rome has committed to dismantling the prison industrial complex from all angles. For Rome, restorative justice is rooted in the belief of nurturing communities from birth through every stage of life.
“I really began to see reproductive and youth justice as two sides of the same coin. My birth work became an extension of the work I was doing with the youth,” Rome says. “I think this birth work piece is a part of how we shift the paradigm around youth justice.”
Assistant Director of Training, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice
In Rachel’s first year of teaching Spanish for Teach for America, in 2010, a roach dropped right in front of her face in the FEMA trailer she was using as a classroom.
“I had an unofficial job as an exterminator,” Lewis says, noting that she never actually killed a creature. “But we had so many joyful moments in my classroom — joy is really just so woven into the culture of New Orleans.”
Lewis’ career arc in education has bent through schools, prisons and now to recently released people via the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. Teach For America doesn’t have the greatest retention rate, but Lewis has been in the education system for 14 years.
“I noticed that people who had respect [for] and centered the students’ needs were most successful,” Lewis says.
After teaching a mix of Spanish, math and special education for six years, in 2016, Lewis helped start Travis Hill, a school with one campus inside of a juvenile detention center and another inside an adult jail.
“I had students who were incarcerated,” Lewis says, citing it as inspiration to do her work with Travis Hill. “I didn’t really know what happened to them; it’s like they just disappeared.”
Now, at the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, she helps plug unemployed and underemployed people into the environmental remediation industry, including people coming home from incarceration.
Lewis is also in the process of starting a nonprofit with the mission to reduce childhood incarceration by supporting young people in the city and their families and helping dismantle systems that are not set up to serve young people.
Alongside all of this, she’s managed not only to raise her two boys but also run social media accounts on how to be an eco-friendly mom, dances with the Cherry Bombs and has a specialty in costuming.
Bianca Cook, 31
Founder/Creative Director, The NOLA Collective; Director of Strategic Initiatives, Ochsner Health
Ironically, Bianca Cook never envisioned herself working in anything media related. She pursued a career in health care, starting off as a registered nurse before transitioning to the administrative side of the business. It was actually a health care conference that pushed her to start The NOLA Collective, a media and consulting platform.
Since launching her platform in 2022, Cook has been able to build a bridge between both of her worlds, diversifying both the health and cultural communities in New Orleans. The platform now has over 40,000 followers and regularly partners with local and national brands like NOLA Miles Club, French Quarter Festival and Essence Festival to highlight a variety of local artists and activities. She also is on the management team for Newtral Groundz, a marketing agency and media company that’s become one of the mainstays of the city’s social media space, blending history, culture, humor and commentary to inform and explain the wild city we live in. Cook also co-hosts the podcast
“Standing On Business” with Amari Green about growing professionally.
At its core, the mission behind her roles is to get the community engaged and improve overall wellness.
“Duality has always been a focus of the collective and a mission of my brand,” Cook says.
Margo Moss, 39
President, L&M Environmental Response
Addressing an oil spill is never as straightforward as just cleaning up the oil, says Margo Moss. There are lot of considerations at play during spill response. For large spills, the kind Moss has worked on as an environmental scientist and with her company L&M Environmental Response, clean-up crews have to watch out for endangered species, protecting the plant life to avoid future erosion and taking note of the human components, like areas where people live or public beaches.
“It’s problem solving,” says Moss. “But I think why I really like that spill response world is … it’s a meritocracy. There’s a lot of money and a lot at stake, so if you’re not good at your job, you’re gone.”
L&M Environmental Response, which Moss co-founded in 2016 and now owns fully, consults with local governments, industry and oil spill response organizations after large spills around the country. But that’s only part of what L&M does. Moss’ company has steadily been working more in post-hurricane environmental consulting — things like looking for asbestos or hazardous materials when a building needs to be demolished — and environmental compliance for larger companies.
Environmental consultants “can mean a lot, and it has shifted over the years,” Moss says.
Moss grew up running around the woods and streams in the country around Woodstock, New York, she says, and she inherited her mother’s love for gardening. So when she enrolled at Tulane University and moved to New Orleans, she pursued degrees that would help her better understand the natural world, including a master’s degree in environmental biology.
Her work over the years has taken her from offshore oil rigs to working on the BP Oil Spill — her first foray into spill response — and a stint with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
In 2021, Moss took part in Gov. John Bel Edward’s Climate Initiative Task Force, and she is the membership committee chair for the Spill Control Association of America. She’s also one of the founders of Krewe de Lune and is involved with the Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association.
“Ultimately, whether I’m doing compliance for local industry or spill response, my job is to fix problems,” Moss says. “I fix other people’s problems, and I’m damn good at it.”
Rachel Lewis, 37
Lauren Sapp, 36
At the Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI), attorney and advocate Lauren Sapp is fighting a multi-pronged war against mass incarceration in the incarceration capital of the nation. To do that, she and her PJI colleagues combine civil and criminal litigation with organizing, using what she calls “the umbrella of storytelling to reform and eventually abolish
many aspects of the criminal legal system,” from inhumane confinement conditions and punishments to the plantation-style prison system.
Still, the challenges at hand can be daunting even for Sapp, a former Orleans Parish public defender who spent years often representing 200 or more clients at a time. But the Los Angeles-born attorney brings a unique arsenal to the fight, one that extends beyond her trial litigation skills and successful track record advocating for incarcerated people.
Sapp has a way of appealing directly to reason and humanity, even in conversation, whether she’s making a case for why New Orleans’ approach to incarceration hasn’t worked or explaining how “Black joy” drives so much of what she does professionally and personally.
Asked how the Trump and Landry administrations’ policies attacking diversity, equity and inclusion programs, immigration and more affect her day-to-day work, Sapp admits she has wondered, “Is law even real anymore?”
But her answer to that question remains: “We have love and we have joy, and I think that all people should be allowed in some capacity to experience those things.”
Ashley Shabankareh, 36
Ashley Shabankareh, the director of operations and programs for the Trombone Shorty Foundation, just returned from Europe with a group of young artists who were sharing New Orleans brass music on international stages.
The musician, educator, advocate and author says every day is different. She also teaches at Loyola and Xavier universities and serves on multiple boards related to music and education.
Shabankareh also is the board president of the Folk Alliance International and is working on a book about how to integrate brass instruments into pop music for modern band classes.
For the most part, everything Shabankareh does is centered around supporting young brass musicians as they navigate the industry and prepare to launch their careers.
“It’s all intertwined,” they say.
Music can be a tough way to make a living, but the Trombone Shorty Foundation supports artists with well-rounded programs that build technical skills while also mentoring them on fair pay and business savvy.
Some of the students start as young as 12, and Shabankareh always is inspired by how much confidence these students develop “in real time,” she says.
“It’s such a great moment as an educator to see them following the path,” they say. “It’s always about these ‘light bulb’ moments.”
Shabankareh also hopes to rally New Orleanians to keep supporting artists and local venues that employ them.
“Go to live music venues and support artists, pay the cover, tip the band, buy their merch, like them on social media and on streaming platforms,” they say. “The way we make money is heavily reliant upon the live event industry, and the more we can get behind artists, the more we can make sure there are stable incomes.”
Founder and Owner, Sports Drink
Behind the Sports Drink stage is a wall of classic, orange Igloo coolers. A stand-up comedian will occasionally poke fun at the vibrant backdrop, but when a post pops into the social media feed, the Toledano Street comedy club and coffee shop is quickly recognizable.
“The world is chaotic. I think we’re just in an attention battle,” says Sports Drink founder Andrew Stephens. “That’s why a lot of our social media stuff is non-traditional, like me tweeting at every Pelicans player, ‘Do you like premium dark roast coffee?’ ”
Pelicans player Karlo Matkovic responded to Stephens and came to a comedy show.
Over the last two years, Sports Drink has quickly grown from a coffee shop with occasional night-time events into a much-needed stage for comedy, now hosting almost nightly events and sold-out shows with Sean Patton, Mark Normand, Dulce Sloan, Liza Treyger and more. And earlier this year, Sports Drink organized the first Toledano Street Comedy Festival, featuring a dozen touring headliners and 50 New Orleans comics.
Stephens, a Baton Rouge native who studied journalism and sports management at the University of Georgia, moved to New Orleans in 2020 and was toying with the idea of opening a physical space for his podcast network, Sports Drink.
Stephens and his business partner, a friend who wanted to start a café, opened the space on Toledano in May 2023, operating as Junk Drawer Coffee in the mornings and as Sports Drink in the evenings. Last year, Stephens purchased the coffee assets (his former partner plans a Junk Drawer Space on Broadway Street)
Stephens’ goal is for Sports Drink to be a community hub. They have regular community nights to make sandwiches for community fridges and offer hygiene packs, snack packs and sandwiches to people who need them.
“The comedy at Sports Drink is the straw the stirs the drink. It’s what people are interested in, and it’s what we make our money off of,” Stephens says. “While the comedy shows are fun, this is a place where we’re open 14 hours a day … I want to figure out a way where we can be as effective of a mutual aid network as possible.”
Sports Drink now plans to open a second location in early 2026 near Jackson Avenue and Tchoupitoulas to host larger shows.
Andrew Stephens, 31
Director of Operations & Programs, Trombone Shorty Foundation
PHOTO BY MADDIE SPINNER
Deputy Director, Promise of Justice Initiative
EAT + DRINK
Gone to the dogs
Fur Bebe Cafe opens in Uptown
WHEN YOU PLAN A VISIT TO FUR BEBE CAFE, remember to BYOD.
That’s “bring your own dog,” part of the fun at the new joy-inducing, pooch-welcoming space at 4826 Magazine St.
Designed with a smile and a wink by owners Barrett Cooper and his wife Alejandra Guzman, the renovated former real estate office is equal parts coffee house, cafe, community center and doggy hub.
Geoff Lewis, a partner with Cooper in the hospitality-geared NOLA Capital Partners, adds his operations wizardry. Chef Jessica Mulherin is in the kitchen, rounding out a team that’s as focused as a dog with a bone.
The idea for Fur Bebe was hatched during the pandemic. Cooper was chairman of the board for French Quarter Fest when the virus kneecapped cultural activities, tourism and hospitality virtually overnight.
“Seeing how quickly our culture went on life support, that was game changing,” says Cooper, whose career has included working with BRG Hospitality at the Pontchartrain Hotel and developing the immersive Double Dealer bar at the Orpheum Theater.
“All of a sudden, joy was elusive,” he says. “Simple things became so important, like that morning cup of coffee and the time we spend with our dogs. There was something there, a mash-up between the joy of life, coffee and dogs, that birthed this concept. The idea of loving life like dogs do.”
The fire-engine red building is adorned with a distinctive dog bone logo. The space holds about 35 seats inside at a scattering of tables that encourage lingering, and there’s a shaded patio.
Inside, there’s a wall of hilarious art in gold frames, hung at a dog’s eye level, featuring AI-generated pictures with names like “Toilet water still life” and “Infinite butt sniffs.” Tennis balls adorn the ceiling, and a back room offers canine merch and treats that look good enough to eat.
by Beth D’Addono |
Lakeview Boil
DAVID MCCELVEY KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT New Orleans neighborhood restaurants. Once a chef with Emeril Lagasse’s company, for the past decade he’s run Frankie & Johnny’s, helping give the classic Uptown seafood spot a new lease on life.
Now McCelvey and his partners are preparing to open a new restaurant in Lakeview.
Boil & Barrel is taking shape at 900 Harrison Ave., on the main commercial strip in Lakeview, taking over the spot that was previously Outpost 45. It’s slated to open in mid-August.
The new restaurant is a partnership that includes Frankie & Johnny’s co-owner, the local businessman Hicham Khodr, and Tarek Tay, who co-founded the Byblos restaurant brand with Khodr. McCelvey and Tay will run the new Lakeview restaurant together.
But save the appetite for chef Mulherin’s playful doggy-themed menu of toasts, sandwiches, salads and smoothies.
Mulherin, a cat and dog person, is a Philly native whose 4 Cats Catering company specialized in pierogies and other Polish food during the pandemic.
At Fur Bebe, her lineup of sourdough and whole wheat toasts is perfect for when a whole sandwich is too much. Think Barkin’ Avocado Toast, made with avocado and bacon, the Hound Dog mash up of peanut butter and banana and the Mutt-iterranean slathered with roasted garlic hummus, feta and vegetables.
Salads are fresh, and the dressings are house-made. The Corgi Cobb is a generous platter striped with rows of turkey, bacon, blue cheese, avocado, tomatoes and cucumbers. It’s a bargain at $12, and there’s
enough for two. Diners can opt for the addition of flaxseed or extra blue spirulina to smoothies like the Green Matcha made with spinach and the mini chocolate chip with super greens and almond butter.
Kids have their own sandwich options, which come with fruit or chips and milk or juice, for $7. Prices are in the $7-$13 range, reflecting Cooper’s desire to keep things approachable for neighborhood regulars.
The newly opened cafe is just getting started with programs, too, Cooper says. There are regular Thursday TED-inspired PUP talks, and on Friday at 7:30 a.m., there’s downward dog yoga for $15. Family programming includes canine-inspired crafting. Adoption events are a natural fit. An off-leash play area is in the works for when the weather gets cooler, along with more play options for kids.
“We are focused on simplicity and joy,” Cooper says.
As the name suggests, crawfish and seasonal boiled seafood will be a big part of the program, like at Frankie &
Johnny’s. In fact, the partners considered opening a second Frankie & Johnny’s in Lakeview, but instead decided to introduce a different concept.
Beyond the boiling room, Boil & Barrel will have a wide-ranging menu, modernizing the template of the traditional New Orleans restaurant a bit. There will be fried seafood platters and po-boys, and raw oysters from the kitchen (rather than a dedicated oyster bar), and also a burger, steak, grilled fish and chilled seafood, like crab claws and shrimp remoulade.
“I’ve learned what New Orleans wants, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” McCelvey says. “But we can bring things to the neighborhood so people have more of what they want close to home.”
Proprietors Barrett Cooper (left) and Geoff Lewis, chef Jessica Mulherin and Alejandra Guzman at Fur Bebe Cafe
PHOTO BY MADDIE SPINNER / GAMBIT
Boil & Barrel will open in Lakeview.
PHOTO BY IAN MCNULTY / THE TIMES- PICAYUNE
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The barrel part of the name refers to a focus on beer and bourbon at the restaurant’s large bar. It will have a handful of beers on tap, with many more in cans. In addition to its bourbon selection, the bar will have a menu of dishes dubbed “friends of bourbon,” geared to pair with whiskey, like boudin balls and deviled eggs.
“It’s going to be really fun, I’m really looking forward to getting the energy back in there, and becoming a part of the neighborhood,” McCelvey says.
This corner spot along Lakeview’s main street has seen a number of restaurants through the years. For 10 years it was home to Susan Spicer’s casual concept Mondo before becoming the Italian restaurant Elle J’s. Outpost 45, developed by the operators of the nearby Velvet Cactus, made it about two years before closing in March.
Boil & Barrel will keep its predecessor’s outdoor seating and basic layout inside. It will serve dinner to begin and add lunch as its schedule expands.
— Ian McNulty / The Times-Picayune
Tatlo closes
LAST YEAR, A LOCAL CHEF KNOWN FOR HER WAY WITH FILIPINO COOKING spun together a unique restaurant with a speakeasy-esque location on Bourbon Street, an absinthe bar, late-night hours and a deep connection to her own spirituality as a witch.
Now Tatlo has reached its final days, at least in its current incarnation.
Chef and founder Cristina Quackenbush announced Tatlo would close July 27.
“Tatlo was born from a desire to create something sacred — a space that honored women, Filipino culture, spiritual curiosity and the art of gathering with intention,” she says.
The restaurant is in a well-hidden space tucked behind the Old Absinthe House, a landmark Bourbon Street bar. It quietly opened in June 2024 and then burst on the scene in the fall in time for Halloween. It stayed busy through the year, even through the city’s summer slump.
Quackenbush says she’s closing because the expense of running the business in its current location has become untenable.
Even with a Bourbon Street address, most of her customers were locals, by about 85% of the business, she estimates.
She left the door open for Tatlo to return in a different location, though has no firm plans in place now.
FORK & CENTER
The self-described “witchy” restaurant in the French Quarter had all the makings for shtick, but Tatlo never felt like a theme restaurant. Instead, it was a genuine manifestation of the chef’s identity and spirituality through food, drinks and hospitality.
Dishes and cocktails start with the spiritual or wellness properties of their ingredients.
As a chef, Quackenbush earned many fans through Milkfish, which started as a pop-up for her traditional Filipino cooking. It turned into a full-fledged restaurant in Mid-City and then changed back into a pop-up.
Milkfish still hosts communal-style kamayan dinners in conjunction with the pop-up Kusina. — Ian McNulty / The Times-Picayune
Rosella closes IN A PART OF TOWN KNOWN FOR ITS LONG-RUNNING , traditional New Orleans-style neighborhood restaurants, Rosella brought something different.
It was a more modern version of the neighborhood restaurant, with generous charcuterie boards, inexpensive wines and a grab-and-go section.
Now, Rosella is joining the growing list of restaurants to close in 2025.
Proprietor Romney Richard announced the restaurant would close July 27.
Rosella debuted around Thanksgiving in 2023. Just a block from the Mid-City landmark restaurant Mandina’s, Rosella opened in the location that had been Fullblast Brunch and, prior to that, the original Ruby Slipper.
It was originally created by Paul McCaige and Alixandra Petrovich, who tapped friends in the movie set design business to give the space its distinctive look. Petrovich’s mother Romney Richard and her husband Charley Richard later took on operating the restaurant.
The look is colorful and vintage, with a wrap-around bar and sidewalk tables. In a change of pace from the Creole-Italian and New Orleans-style joints nearby, the menu had an eclectic mix of flavors, some hearty, some light. Corndogs became an unlikely menu hit.
Announcing the closure, Richard thanked Rosella regulars and staff and encouraged people to “eat, drink and show our staff your love these last two weeks we will be open.” — Ian McNulty / The Times-Picayune
WI NE OF THE WEEK
Sarah Newton
Chef, pitmaster
by Will Coviello
SARAH NEWTON GREW UP ON A SUGAR
Lunetta Prosecco
Pale strawwith greenish reflections,fine bubbles, and acreamywhite foam. Fragrant, with enticing aromas of apple and peach. Refreshing, dry,and harmonious, with crisp fruit flavors and aclean finish.
DISTRIBUTED BY
CANE FARM IN BUNKIE , Louisiana. After studying nutrition at LSU, she moved to New Orleans to work as a dietician. She joined the Hogs for the Cause team Sweet Swine O’ Mine, inaugurated its whole hog roasts and delved into barbecue. She started a pop-up called Coop’s Table, named after her dog Cooper, and she serves smoked meats, boudin and more. She’ll be at Miel Brewery & Taproom on Tuesday, July 29, and at Henry’s Uptown Bar on Aug. 8. For more information, visit @coops. table on Instagram.
How did you get interested in cooking?
SARAH NEWTON: I am from Bunkie. We’re a crop farming community, and my dad and twin brother farm sugar cane.
We were always cooking. Being from a small town like that, you don’t have access to all of the fast-food options and things like that. I learned to cook from a very young age. My dad was always grilling on the weekends.
One of the things we’d do as a family is my father would roast a whole pig at Easter. We still do that. I wanted to learn about it and understand the process. I actually do that now. I have been hired to cater whole hog things. People are always so fascinated I learned how to do this.
I ended up joining Sweet Swine O’ Mine with Hogs for the Cause. I worked with one of the women (on the team) at the hospital. I went and I was like, “This is awesome. I need to be a part of this.”
They weren’t doing whole hog at the time. I said, “My dad has a cooker, and I can use it. I will do it. No one else has to do anything.”
My dad ended up buying me the same cooker that he has. He brought it to me in New Orleans, and I ended up using it at Hogs. Everyone was like, we’re doing this every year.
I am not a chef by school training, but I have trained myself and studied food and nutrition for so long that it’s in my nature.
How did you get into the barbecue world?
N: I met people through Hogs and people in the barbecue world where that’s their full-time job. I just continued to learn more and get creative with what I am doing.
Through the Hogs family, I met Erin Feges and her husband. They own Feges BBQ in Houston. They invited me to come to a festival in Charleston that benefitted Hogs. I learned how they do their brisket and beef ribs and how they smoke turkeys and chickens. I also picked the brain of a friend who owns Evie Mae’s BBQ in Lubbock. They showed me how they do things in Texas. I enjoy that style of cooking.
In the Carolinas, they’re known for whole hog. I picked up some things. A lot of them have this mop sauce. The sauces are on the vinegar side.
I have a friend Holden (Sasser) at Union Barbecue (in Charlotte, N.C.), and he taught me to make different sauces. I love making sauces. He showed me some techniques, and I made them my own. My sauce isn’t traditionally Texas, but my smoking techniques are.
I add in my own things, like putting smoked pork into a quesadilla instead of a taco or a slider. Doing the boudin quesadilla or boudin balls, I also incorporate my own things. I top the boudin quesadilla with smoked crema. I do a cold smoke on crema. Inside, I put homemade pepper jelly.
How did you start the pop-up?
N: I was doing more smoked meats. Then I just kind of said, this is a huge
passion of mine, why don’t I have a little side business and do a pop-up here and there?
My first pop-up was at Mardi Gras at Henry’s (Uptown Bar) on Thoth Sunday. I did it all by myself, and I was in the weeds at parts. One of my signature dishes is a Boudin Dilla, so it’s a boudin quesadilla. I had pulled pork for sliders. I had deer sausage dogs. I sold everything I cooked and was like, “That was amazing.” I always have boudin. The Boudin Dilla is here to stay. I also do a boudin plate. It’s a link of grilled boudin, pickles and whatnot, and I make this mustard, cane syrup and chili oil sauce.
I hadn’t done ribs for a pop-up, but I have cooked them for other folks. Then I did a special with ribs on the menu a couple weeks ago. That was a hit.
They’re different. They’re not mopped in sauce. They’re smoked with sauce on them at a certain point, but they don’t get an extra dunk of sauce before service. You’re getting the meaty flavor with seasonings without overdoing the sauce.
I also do smoked cream cheese. I make a smoked cream cheese dip and serve it with seasoned saltine crackers.
I make pretty much everything from scratch. For my barbecue sauce, I don’t use ketchup as a base. I use whole tomatoes. There are more steps, but I am willing to do that to make it better. I have catered for parties and have done bridal breakfast for a bridal party.
Lately the pop-up and catering have been going really well and getting more traction. I have my signature dishes dialed in, and I throw in some different fun specials when I want to get creative.
I want to grow the pop-up and reach more people. I am passionate about feeding people good food. I don’t want to lose sight of that. I enjoy tinkering with recipes and trying new things.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY SARAH NEWTON
Out to Eat is an index of Gambit contract advertisers. Unless noted, addresses are for New Orleans and all accept credit cards. Updates: Email willc@gambitweekly.com or call (504) 483-3106.
Angelo Brocato’s — 214 N. Carrollton Ave., (504) 486-1465; angelobrocatoicecream.
com — This Mid-City sweet shop serves its own gelato in flavors like praline, salted caramel and tiramisu, as well as Italian ices in flavors like lemon, strawberry and mango. There also are cannolis, biscotti, fig cookies, tiramisu, macaroons and coffee drinks. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $
com — Gulf Drum Yvonne is served with brown butter sauce with mushrooms and artichoke hearts. There also are oysters, seafood pasta dishes, steaks, lamb chops and more. Reservations recommended. Dinner Thu.-Mon. $$$
Bamboula’s — 514 Frenchmen St.; bamboulasmusic.com — The live music venue’s kitchen offers a menu of traditional and creative Creole dishes, such as Creole crawfish crepes with goat cheese and chardonnay sauce. Reservations accepted. Lunch, dinner and late-night daily. $$
The Blue Crab Restaurant and Oyster Bar — 118 Harbor View Court, Slidell, (985) 315-7001; 7900 Lakeshore Drive, (504) 284-2898; thebluecrabnola.com — Basin barbecue shrimp are served with rosemary garlic butter sauce over cheese grits with a cheese biscuit. The menu includes po-poys, fried seafood platters, raw and char-grilled oysters, boiled seafood in season, and more. Outdoor seating available. No reservations. Lakeview: Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. Slidell: Lunch Wed.-Fri., dinner Wed.-Sun., brunch Sat.-Sun. $$
Broussard’s — 819 Conti St., (504) 5813866; broussards.com — The menu of contemporary Creole dishes includes bronzed redfish with jumbo lump crabmeat, lemon beurre blanc and vegetables. Brunch includes Benedicts, avocado toast, chicken and waffles, turtle soup and more. Reservations recommended. Outdoor seating available in the courtyard. Dinner Wed.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$$
Cafe Normandie — Higgins Hotel, 480 Andrew Higgins Blvd., (504) 528-1941; higginshotelnola.com/dining — The menu combines classic French dishes and Louisiana items like crab beignets with herb aioli. Sandwiches include po-boys, a muffuletta on flatbread and a burger. No reservations. Breakfast and lunch Mon.-Sat., dinner Fri.-Mon. $$
The Commissary — 634 Orange St., (504) 274-1850; thecommissarynola.com — Dickie Brennan’s Commissary supplies his other restaurant kitchens and also has a dine-in menu and prepared foods to go. A smoked turkey sandwich is served with bacon, tomato jam, herbed cream cheese, arugula and herb vinaigrette on honey oat bread. The menu includes dips, salads, sandwiches, boudin balls, fried oysters and more. No reservations. Outdoor seating available. Lunch Tue.-Sat. $$ Curio — 301 Royal St., (504) 717-4198; curionola.com — The creative Creole menu includes blackened Gulf shrimp served with chicken and andouille jambalaya. There also are crab cakes, shrimp and grits, crawfish etouffee, po-boys and more. Outdoor
$ — average dinner entrée under $10
$$ $11-$20
$$$ — $20-up
seating available on balcony. Reservations accepted. Lunch and dinner daily. $$ Dahla — 611 O’Keefe Ave., (504) 766-6602; dahlarestaurant.com — The menu includes popular Thai dishes like pad thai, drunken noodles, curries and fried rice. Crispy skinned duck basil is prepared with vegetables and Thai basil. Delivery available. Reservations accepted. Lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat. $$
Desire Oyster Bar — Royal Sonesta New Orleans, 300 Bourbon St., (504) 586-0300; sonesta.com/desireoysterbar — A menu full of Gulf seafood includes oysters served raw on the half-shell or char-broiled with with Parmesan, garlic and herbs. The menu also includes po-boys, po-boys, gumbo, blackened fish, fried seafood platters and more. Reservations recommended. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$
Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House — 144 Bourbon St., (504) 522-0111; bourbonhouse. com — There’s a seafood raw bar with raw and char-broiled oysters, fish dip, crab fingers, shrimp and more. Redfish on the Half-shell is cooked skin-on and served with crab-boiled potatoes, frisee and lemon buerre blanc. The bar offers a wide selection of bourbon and whiskies. Reservations accepted. Lunch and dinner daily. $$$
Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse — 716 Iberville St., (504) 522-2467; dickiebrennanssteakhouse.com — The menu includes a variety of steaks, plus seared Gulf fish, lobster pasta, barbecue shrimp and more. A 6-ounce filet mignon is served with fried oysters, creamed spinach, potatoes and bearnaise. Reservations recommended. Dinner Mon.-Sat. $$$
El Pavo Real — 4401 S. Broad Ave., (504) 266-2022; elpavorealnola.com — The menu includes tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas, ceviche. tamales and more. Pescado Vera Cruz features sauteed Gulf fish topped with tomatoes, olives, onion and capers, served with rice and string beans. Outdoor seating available. No reservations. Lunch and early dinner Tue.-Sat. $$
Juan’s Flying Burrito — 515 Baronne St., (504) 529-5825; 2018 Magazine St., (504) 569-0000; 4724 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 486-9950; 8140 Oak St., (504) 897-4800; juansflyingburrito.com — The Flying Burrito includes steak, shrimp, chicken, cheddar jack cheese, black beans, rice, guacamole and salsa. The menu also includes tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, fajitas, nachos, salads, rice and bean bowls with various toppings and more. Outdoor seating available. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Thu.-Tue. $$
Katie’s Restaurant — 3701 Iberville St., (504) 488-6582; katiesinmidcity.com — The Cajun Cuban with roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard. The eclectic menu also includes char-grilled oysters, sandwiches, burgers, pizza, fried seafood platters, pasta, salads and more. Delivery available. Reservations accepted for large parties. Lunch and dinner daily. $$
Kilroy’s Bar — Higgins Hotel, 480 Andrew Higgins Blvd., (504) 528-1941; higginshotelnola.com/dining — The all-day bar menu includes sandwiches, soups, salads, flatbreads and a couple entrees. A muffuletta flatbread is topped with salami, mortadella,
capicola, mozzarella and olive salad. No reservations. Lunch Fri.-Mon., dinner daily. $$
Legacy Kitchen’s Craft Tavern — 700 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 613-2350; legacykitchen.com — The menu includes oysters, flatbreads, burgers, sandwiches, salads and sharables plates like NOLA Tot Debris. A slow-cooked pulled pork barbecue sandwich is served with coleslaw on a brioche bun. Reservations accepted. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$
Legacy Kitchen Steak & Chop — 91 Westbank Expressway, Gretna, (504) 513-2606; legacykitchen.com — The selection of steak and chops includes filet mignon, bone-in rib-eye, top sirloin and double pork chops. There also are burgers, salads, pasta, seafood entrees, char-broiled oysters and more. Reservations accepted. Outdoor seating available. Lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat. $$
Luzianne Cafe — 481 Girod St., (504) 2651972; luziannecafe.com — Boudin Benedict features two poached eggs over boudin and an English muffin, served with green tomato chow chow and hollandaise. No reservations. Delivery available. Breakfast and lunch Wed.-Sun. $$
Mikimoto — 3301 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 488-1881; mikimotosushi.com — The South Carrollton roll includes tuna tataki, avocado and snow crab. The menu also has noodle dishes, teriyaki and more. Reservations accepted. Delivery available. Lunch Sun.Fri., dinner daily. $$
Mosca’s — 4137 Highway 90 West, Westwego, (504) 436-8950; moscasrestaurant.com — This family-style eatery serves Italian dishes and specialties including chicken a la grande, shrimp Mosca, baked oysters Mosca and chicken cacciatore. Reservations accepted. Dinner Wed.-Sat. Cash only. $$$
Mother’s Restaurant — 401 Poydras St., (504) 523-9656; mothersrestaurant.net — This counter-service spot serves po-boys dressed with sliced cabbage like the Famous Ferdi filled with ham, roast beef and debris. Creole favorites include jambalaya, crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice and more. Breakfast is available all day. Delivery available. No reservations. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$
Neyow’s Creole Cafe — 3332 Bienville St., (504) 827-5474; neyows.com — The menu includes red beans and rice with fried chicken or pork chops, as well as shrimp Creole, seafood platters, po-boys, char-grilled and raw oysters, salads and more. Side items include carrot souffle, mac and cheese, cornbread dressing, sweet potato tots and more. No reservations. Lunch daily, dinner Mon.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$
Nice Guys Bar & Grill — 7910 Earhart Blvd., (504) 302-2404; niceguysbarandgrillnola. com — Char-grilled oysters are topped with cheese and garlic butter, and other options include oysters Rockefeller and loaded oysters. The creative menu also includes seafood bread, a Cajun-lobster potato, wings, quesadillas, burgers, salads, sandwiches, seafood pasta, loaded fries and more. No reservations. Lunch daily, dinner Mon.-Sat. $$$
Orleans Grapevine Wine Bar & Bistro — 720 Orleans Ave., (504) 523-1930; orleansgrapevine.com — The wine bar offers cheese boards and appetizers to nosh with wines. The menu includes Creole pasta with shrimp and andouille in tomato cream sauce. Reservations accepted for large parties.
Outdoor seating available. Dinner Thu.-Sun. $$
Palace Cafe — 605 Canal St., (504) 5231661; palacecafe.com — The contemporary Creole menu includes signature dishes like crabmeat cheesecake with mushrooms and Creole meuniere sauce. There also are steaks, pasta, a burger and Gulf seafood dishes. Outdoor seating available. Reservations recommended. Breakfast and lunch Wed.-Fri., dinner Wed.-Sun., brunch Sat.-Sun. $$$
Parish Grill — 4650 W. Esplanade Ave., Suite 100, Metairie, (504) 345-2878; parishgrill.com — The menu includes burgers, sandwiches, pizza and sauteed andouille with fig dip, blue cheese and toast points. Reservations accepted. Lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat. $$
Peacock Room — Kimpton Hotel Fontenot, 501 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 324-3073; peacockroomnola.com — At brunch, braised short rib grillades are served over grits with mushrooms, a poached egg and shaved truffle. The dinner menu has oysters, salads, pasta, shrimp and grits, a burger, cheese plates and more. Reservations accepted. Dinner Wed.-Mon., brunch Sun. $$
Rosie’s on the Roof — Higgins Hotel, 480 Andrew Higgins Blvd., (504) 528-1941; higginshotelnola.com/dining — The rooftop bar has a menu of sandwiches, burgers and small plates. Crab beignets are made with Gulf crabmeat and mascarpone and served with herb aioli. No reservations. Dinner Mon.-Sat. $$
Tableau — 616 St. Peter St., (504) 934-3463; tableaufrenchquarter.com — The menu features traditional and creative Creole dishes. Pasta bouillabaisse features squid ink mafaldine, littleneck clams, Gulf shrimp, squid, seafood broth, rouille and herbed breadcrumbs. Outdoor seating available on the balcony. Reservations recommended. Dinner Wed.-Sun., brunch Thu.-Sun. $$$ Tacklebox — 817 Common St., (504) 827-1651; legacykitchen.com — The menu includes raw and char-broiled oysters, seafood platters, po-boys, fried chicken, crab and corn bisque and more. Redfish St. Charles is served with garlic-herb butter, asparagus, mushrooms and crawfish cornbread. Reservations accepted. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$
Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 1212 S. Clearview Parkway, Elmwood, (504) 733-3803; 2125 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 510-4282; 4024 Canal St., (504) 302-1133; 4218 Magazine St., (504) 894-8554; 70488 Highway 21, Covington, (985) 234-9420; theospizza.com — A Marilynn Pota Supreme pie is topped with mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, hamburger, mushrooms, bell peppers and onions. There also are salads, sandwiches, wings, breadsticks and more. Delivery available. Lunch and dinner daily. $
The Vintage — 3121 Magazine St., (504) 324-7144; thevintagenola.com — There’s a full coffee drinks menu and baked goods and beignets, as well as a full bar. The menu has flatbreads, cheese boards, small plates and a pressed veggie sandwich with avocado, onions, arugula, red pepper and pepper jack cheese. No reservations. Delivery and outdoor seating available. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$
CANNABIS CANNABIS
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Primus
For 40 years, Primus has been difficult to define. The trio has often been called funk metal, but that’s a narrow definition when there are progressive elements, psychedelia, art rock, humor (Primus created the “South Park” theme song) and Seussian, circus theatrics. Bassist Les Claypool and guitarist Larry LaLonde have played together since the late ‘80s, most of that time with longtime drummer Tim Alexander, who left the band late last year. Drummer John Hoffman, a Shreveport native, now completes the Primus trio. The band plays at 8 p.m. Monday, July 28, at the Saenger Theatre. Tickets start at $60.39 via saengernola.com.
‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’
William Shatner attends a screening of the 1982 film in which Capt. James T. Kirk battles Khan Noonien Singh, played by Ricardo Montalban. The movie continues a plot from an episode from the TV series, which ran in the late 1960s. Several films picked up the saga again starting in 1979 and starred many of the original actors. Here, Khan is a genetically engineered villain who has returned from exile and is out for vengeance. Shatner will share stories about Star Trek and do a Q&A after the screening. At 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 1, at The Fillmore. Find tickets via fillmorenola.com.
‘FLUID’
‘FLUID” explores the highs and lows of a dancer’s life in a work combining pole dancing, modern dance, spoken word and live music. Calvin Rowe, a veteran of the dance companies FLOCK and Lightwire Theater, choreographed the piece for eight dancers, and Landon Strause composed the score. The show premieres at 8 p.m. Wednesday, July 30, and Thursday, July 30, and Saturday, Aug. 2, at Marigny Opera House. There’s also a sliding scale admission preview show at 8 p.m. Monday, July 28. Tickets $30 via marignyoperahouse.org.
The Walk Thru Vol. 2
New Orleans battle rap organizers
Flatline Battle Grounds hosts its next set of head-to-head matches on Saturday, Aug. 2, at Chickie Wah Wah. Participating rappers include Double M, Shooney Da Rapper, Gas Jordan, Chef Trez and more. Omari Neville will host. Tickets are $20.28 via chickiewahwah.com.
Project Pat
Memphis rapper Project Pat first gained attention through his verses on Three 6 Mafia tracks, especially “Sippin’ on Some Syrup,” but his solo work in the early 2000s solidified Pat as a giant in Southern hip-hop and a forerunner in crunk and trap. He comes through New Orleans on Saturday, Aug. 2, for a show at the Joy Theater. Music starts at 8 p.m., and tickets are $39.45 via thejoytheater.com.
Weird Al Yankovic
Weird Al Yankovic broke into MTV rotation with parodies of songs by Michael Jackson and other stars on the music video network in the early 1980s. He’s never stopped churning out versions of current hits of all genres, often with polka-infused accordion music. Last week, he joined Lin-Manuel Miranda on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” to do Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” for audiences upset about the show’s cancellation. Puddles Pity Party also performs. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, July 29, at Saenger Theatre. Tickets start at $59 via saengernola.com.
‘Carousel’
In Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical, Billy Bigelow is a rough-edged carnival barker who flirts with women who ride the carousel. He meets Julie, a millworker, and they fall in love. After they lose their jobs and try to start over, Julie becomes pregnant and that raises the stakes for their troubled relationship in a story exploring love, fidelity and redemption. Diane Lala directs the show for Tulane’s Summer Lyric Theatre. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 31, through Saturday, Aug. 2, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 3. Tickets $31.50-$56.50 via liberalarts.tulane. edu/summer-lyric-theatre.
Gyedu-Blay Ambolley
Saxophonist and vocalist GyeduBlay Ambolley is a legend in West African music. He emerged in the ’60s in Ghana’s highlife scene, fusing African musical traditions and jazz with Afrobeat influences, but he began to shape his own sound in the ’70s by introducing rap-style vocals into his music. His style, simigwa do (named for his debut album), remains popular today, and Ambolley recently released his latest album, “Wake Up Afrika.” He’s now touring the U S. and playing his debut album “Simigwa” in full. He stops at Gasa Gasa at 9 p.m. Thursday, July 31. Tickets are $30.62 via gasagasanola.com.
MUSIC
FOR COMP L ETE M US IC L I S TING S AND MORE EVENT S TAKING P L ACE IN THE NEW OR L EAN S AREA, VI S IT CALENDAR.GAMBITWEEKLY.COM
To learn more about adding your event to the music calendar, please email listingsedit@gambitweekly.com
MONDAY 28
30/90 — Margie Perez, 6 pm; Piano Man G, 9 pm
ALLWAYS LOUNGE — Betsy Propane’s Smokeshow, 7 pm
APPLE BARREL — Mark Appleford, 6 pm; Decaturadio, 10:30 pm
BACCHANAL Nahum Zdybel, 7 pm
BAMBOULA’S — Jon Roniger & The Good for Nothin’ Band, 4:30 pm; Ed Wills Blues 4 Sale, 9 pm
BANKS STREET BAR The Snozzberries + Parallel Threads, 8 pm
BJ’S LOUNGE — Red Beans and Blues with Dick Deluxe & Friends, 9 pm
BOURBON O BAR — Kid Merv, 8 pm
BUFFA’S — David Doucet, 7 pm
CAFE NEGRIL Gumbo Funk, 7:30 pm
CAPULET Cristina Kaminis, 6 pm
D.B.A. — Secret Six Jazz Band, 6 pm; The Jump Hounds, 9 pm; The Afterparty ft. Xavier Lynn, 11 pm
DOS JEFES John Fohl, 8:30 pm
FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB
Matinee All Star Band, 1 pm; Tin Men, 5 pm; Richard "Piano" Scott and Friends, 8 pm
ALLWAYS LOUNGE Van Ella Bordella, 7 pm; Sunday Swing Night, 8 pm
APPLE BARREL — Shwag, 6 pm; Steve Minango, 10:30 pm
BACCHANAL Christien Bold, 7 pm
BJ'S LOUNGE BYWATER
James McClaskey and the Rhythm Band, 9 pm
BOURBON STREET HONKY TONK —
The Bad Sandys, 8 pm
BRATZ Y’ALL Jerry Dugger & Dean Zucchero, 4 pm
CHAMPION SQUARE — Mumford & Sons and Friends + Lainey Wilson, 6:30 pm
DEUTSCHES HAUS Patrick & Danny O’Flaherty, 2 pm
ROYAL FRENCHMEN HOTEL — Chris Christy’s Quintet, 9 pm
In the moment
by Jake Clapp
IN THE LATE-’90S AND EARLY-2000S, Soul 2 Soul on Thursday nights at the House of Blues was “like the biggest cornerstone of New Orleans hip-hop in that era,” says Raj Smoove.
The New Orleans DJ and producer was already a popular DJ by his senior year at Dillard University. He had sharpened his skills at parties and provided the music for poetry events before he started DJing during the House of Blues’ weekly hip-hop night.
The event, which had bounced around days of the week and a couple of French Quarter locations, had settled at House of Blues from around ’97 to 2003 or 2004, Smoove recalls. There would be lines down the block of people waiting to get into the club to dance to DJs, hang out and see what artist might show up.
“You never really knew who was gonna come through and do something,” Smoove says.
The rapper Shyne was there one night and performed his song “Bad Boyz.” 8Ball and MJG and Juvenile came through, and Lil Wayne, who Smoove went on to produce for, was a regular. If you were an artist, had a new song out and were in New Orleans, Soul 2 Soul was a captive audience ready to hear it, Smoove says.
“Everybody was really kind of in the moment and lived inside of the music,” Smoove says of that pre-social media era, a golden time for hip-hop. “People came to a party to experience new music and be social in the real world and in that environment.”
Smoove wants to recapture some of that feeling when he hosts Smoove Fest at the Broadside on Saturday, Aug. 2. With a main stage and VIP stage, the festival will feature music by Raj Smoove with special guests, DJs RQ Away, Jess, Bigg Cheez and Odd Spinz and performances by La Reezy, Kr3wcial, Brass-A-Holics with Caren Green, Flagboy Giz, Xeno Moonflower and more. There will be food vendors and art spread around the event, and it’s also an early birthday celebration for Smoove.
The party is a celebration of New Orleans culture, and in particular the music, connections and energy of “the ’99 and 2000-type era,” Smoove says.
“New Orleans does a great job of curating and celebrating traditional New Orleans music — jazz and brass band music,” he adds. “We haven’t
completely entered the era of saving for posterity that point in time in music for New Orleans.”
At the same time, Smoove says, he wants to celebrate the present and future of hip-hop, with a number of New Orleans’ best rising rappers and DJs on the lineup.Smoove, whose father is Pulitzer Prize-nominated pianist Roger Dickerson Sr., grew up surrounded by great New Orleans musicians. And he came of age and grew as a DJ during a golden age for hip-hop — especially in New Orleans as bounce developed and No Limit and Cash Money began to take over.
In 2000, Smoove was tapped by Mannie Fresh to come with Cash Money on its joint national tour with Ruff Ryders Entertainment, and he produced for Lil Wayne and Sqad Up in the years following.
Smoove remains one of New Orleans’ busiest DJs, working with the Saints and Pelicans, making appearances at Essence Fest, Jazz Fest and venues all over the city. He also regularly produces music for other artists, and runs The Gentilly Agency, working with artists like HaSizzle, Flagboy Giz, 504icygrl and Water Seed.
“We’re in a different season [of life] now,” Smoove says, “but people still want to capture the energy of those moments. I’m trying to put something together for that audience.”
Tickets for Smoove Fest are $31.37, and there are GA and VIP options. Find more info at smoovefestnola.com
2025
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
NFL PREVIEW
ISSUE DATE: SEPTEMBER 1
RESERVE BY: AUGUST 22
Raj Smoove at his studio in Gentilly PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE GENTILLY AGENCY
COMEDY
Grounded
by Will Coviello
COMEDIAN LUKE MONES
KNOWS THERE ARE SOME unfortunate moments in which one can take stock of one’s life. Like at the airport.
In his 2023 album, “Happening in My Head,” Mones talks about being at an airport gate when the call comes for passengers willing to be bumped from the flight.
“It’s a real indictment of your life,” he says. “‘Is there anyone at gate B34 who has nothing to go home to?
“Is there anyone who would like a $12 meal voucher?’”
Now, he laughs that the seed of that joke is that he took the voucher while stuck in Oklahoma City.
“I was like, sure, I can stay here for a night,” he says.
Mones is currently working on a new hour of material for a special he’ll film this fall, and he’ll perform some of it on Saturday, Aug. 2, at Sports Drink.
“Happening in My Head” is full of jokes about mundane events and moments of reckoning. He talks about having the body of a professional athlete — but one from the 1930s, when no-one looked particularly dominating.
Some jokes are about his profession. At one point, he tried improv comedy. Afterward, a friend who came to see the show said to him, “That was like watching my dad get beat up on stage.”
That actually happened to him as well, he says.
Mones got his start in comedy while in college in New York. He says he missed some of the college experience because he was always at open mics around the city instead of on campus. He started performing at them in his senior year. Then he stayed in the city and took offbeat jobs while building his stand-up career.
He was able to shed the day jobs after he teamed up with comic and Louisiana native Josh Johnson. He opened for Johnson, and then Johnson introduced him to the college comedy circuit, which pays better than most comedy clubs.
While driving together on tours of college gigs, they hatched an idea for a show they pitched to Comedy Central.
“There’s nothing else to do while driving seven hours in the snow through Maine,” Mones says.
Comedy Central aired several episodes of “Genies,” in which Johnson and Mones are slightly mismatched coworkers for Genies, an app-based service for people to hire others to do tasks they don’t want to do themselves, like fire a longtime employee.
Later, Mones was hired by Inside Edition as a sort of reporter for an online magazine show. He’d do short segments about odd events or unique people, like a woman in New Jersey who adopted raccoons.
Mones has also been in short films, including “Early Decision,” which screened at the Cannes Film Festival. He moved to Los Angeles a couple of years ago, and now he hosts a podcast called “Luke Mones Explained.” The premise is to explore unexplained mysteries from different regions of the country, but it’s more about having on guest comedians and finding the humor in them, he says.
Mones didn’t miss all of college. He took time for a debauched spring break trip to New Orleans, he says. He remembers everyone as being hammered, including a tour guide dressed as a pirate leading his ghost tour in the French Quarter.
This trip promises to be more focused, and he’ll perform here for the first time.
Luke Mones performs at 7 & 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2, at Sports Drink.
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A/C ADAPTER
By Frank A. Longo
37 Geronimo, for one
Direction that “<--” signifies
Omaha’s home: Abbr. 42 How novelist Cussler felt when one of his books hit the bestseller list?
23 Splinter group on Capitol Hill?
Bohemian 26 -- -Detoo 27 Ducklike bird
Cybernotes 29 Pepsi, e.g.
31 What actor Gregory gave when he starred in a film?
47 Toys, as with an idea 52 Relative of “Inc.” 53 Mama’s mate 54 Nighttime, to bards
55 Lost lady in “The Raven”
56 She may read palms
58 Give a battlefield doc an advisory?
62 Al or Bobby of car racing
63 Guys 64 Birds of myth 65 Shell shock is a form of it, for short 66 Confess that a product is faulty?
