A trailer is going up near the City Putt miniature golf course in New Orleans City Park, and it belongs to one of the city's most recognizable sno-ball names. Imperial Woodpecker Sno-Balls is opening its fourth New Orleans location inside the 1,300-acre park, bringing its shaved ice and handcrafted syrups to a spot expected to draw some of the heaviest foot traffic of any of its stands.
The new stand marks Imperial Woodpecker's expansion beyond its existing footprint on Magazine Street, Freret Street and at The Batture along the Mississippi River, according to NOLA.com. The business is aiming to open the City Park location as soon as possible and within two weeks. Its placement next to City Putt, the 36-hole miniature golf complex on Victory Drive that opened in 2013 across from the Botanical Garden, puts it directly in the path of families already stopping for a round of putt-putt, per Frommer's Travel Guides.
A Flavor Built Around the Park
Imperial Woodpecker has developed new flavors specifically inspired by City Park, including a limited-edition creation called the City Park Bloom Ball, which blends lemon, ginger and hibiscus notes. Founder Neesa Peterson is also bringing back flavors from the business's original 2011 opening in New York City, alongside new additions like lemon basil, watermelon jalapeño, pineapple cilantro, strawberry basil and birthday cake, NOLA.com reports.
“I really love flavors that people can celebrate something with,” Peterson said, according to the outlet's report. She added that Imperial Woodpecker wants to offer something for everyone, a philosophy she said traces back to running a humongous menu during her early days serving sno-balls in New York City's West Village and Greenwich Village neighborhoods, where she worked 10-hour shifts for three summers before relocating.
From a New York Pop-Up to Four New Orleans Stands
Peterson, a New Orleans native, first launched Imperial Woodpecker in New York in 2011 before opening a stand on Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District in 2013, using a New Orleans-made SnoWizard machine, according to DNAinfo. She brought the business home to New Orleans in 2014, introducing flavors like guava, earl grey cream and bourbon vanilla, and the stand briefly served sno-balls at the Riverwalk Outlets that same year before opening its first permanent location on Magazine Street.
That Magazine Street storefront still operates seasonally for sno-balls, transforming into “The Nell Shell” during the winter off-season, per The Tulane Hullabaloo. Imperial Woodpecker later opened additional storefronts on Freret Street and at The Batture, where it serves sno-balls from 11 a.m. to sundown along the Mississippi River. Peterson said Imperial Woodpecker hopes to serve the crowds already flowing through City Park.
Breaking From Sno-Ball Tradition
The multi-location approach sets Imperial Woodpecker apart from many of New Orleans' most storied sno-ball stands, which typically remain rooted at a single address for decades. Hansen's Sno-Bliz has served shaved ice from its Tchoupitoulas Street storefront since 1944, using an electric ice shaver patented by founder Ernest Hansen in 1934 that produces fine, snow-like flakes rather than the coarse ice found in standard snow cones, according to a Medium history of the treat. The stand later became the first sno-ball shop to win a James Beard Foundation “America's Classics” award, and it remains family-run today under granddaughter Ashley Hansen, per the James Beard Foundation.
Plum Street Snoballs offers another example of that single-location tradition, having operated its stand on Burdette Street for more than 80 years and remaining known for serving its shaved ice in folded white takeout-style boxes rather than paper cups. Imperial Woodpecker's move into City Park instead follows the model Peterson built from her earliest days in New York, expanding into new neighborhoods as demand grows rather than settling into one storefront.
Part of a Bigger Push in City Park
The new trailer also lands amid a broader modernization effort inside City Park. City Park Conservancy approved “City Park 2050” last August, a multi-decade master plan guiding investment in trail networks, lagoon restoration and upgraded concession spaces across the park, according to Biz New Orleans. It is only the third large-scale master plan the park has adopted since the 1920s. Separately, the Conservancy announced in March a $2 million gift from the Samuel Barton Stewart III Memorial Foundation to convert the park's historic 1935 maintenance corral into a public gathering center by fall 2027, aimed at better connecting the park's north and south sides.
Imperial Woodpecker previously served as one of the food and beverage vendors at City Park's free Third of July celebration on the Great Lawn, as Hoodline's earlier coverage of the park's holiday event noted. With more than 3.2 million unique visits to the park each year, the new trailer near City Putt gives Peterson's business a direct line to one of the city's largest built-in crowds.
