The Southern Food & Beverage Museum, a Central City institution that spent more than two decades chronicling the region's culinary history, has permanently closed its doors on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. The museum's parent organization, the National Food & Beverage Foundation, confirmed the closure amid a mortgage debt that has ballooned to nearly $5 million in unpaid principal, interest and late fees, according to court documents.
As reported by NOLA.com, the museum was founded in 2004 by Elizabeth Williams, Matt Konigsmark and Gina Warner to celebrate the culture and history of regional food and drink, beginning as a series of pop-up exhibits at different locations around New Orleans before settling into the Riverwalk Marketplace shopping center. Museum operators purchased a 30,000-square-foot building on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in 2011, financed in part by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and the Prudential Social Investments Fund, at a project cost of $3.5 million. The building had housed part of the historic Dryades Street Market more than a century earlier, and the museum opened at the site in June 2012 following extensive renovation.
That history runs even deeper than the museum's own tenancy. The site originated as part of the public Dryades Market established by the City of New Orleans in January 1849, which served as a major commercial hub before the city relinquished control in 1946, according to the Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard Merchants & Business Association. Dryades Street itself was posthumously renamed in 1989 to honor civil rights pioneer Oretha Castle Haley, who as a college student helped lead a 1960 boycott against merchants on the street who refused to hire Black workers.
A Financial Deficit the Pandemic Couldn't Undo
According to the same NOLA.com report, the museum operated successfully for over 20 years, celebrating its 20th anniversary two years before shutting down. But the National Food & Beverage Foundation was unable to overcome financial obstacles created by the pandemic and hurricanes earlier this decade. Tax filings show the toll: the foundation reported total annual revenues of $424,500 against total expenses of $535,666 in 2024, ending the year with approximately $3.19 million in total assets, per Cause IQ.
Leadership changed hands more than once during that stretch. Elizabeth Williams stepped down as CEO in 2019, Brent Rosen later replaced her, and Connie Jackson replaced Rosen as CEO in 2024. The museum's onsite bar had become an important revenue stream over the years, and its open kitchen supported in-house restaurants and a cooking school, while classes and special events augmented its permanent exhibits. The museum board is now brainstorming the future of the National Food & Beverage Foundation and said the debt will be settled once the museum vacates the building, the outlet's report notes.
What Happens to the Collections
The museum's exhibits ranged from the cuisines of the Southern states to a dedicated feature on Al Copeland, the founder of Popeyes, which debuted in St. Bernard Parish. Artifacts on display included the McKenzie's Bakery neon sign and the Bruning's Restaurant mahogany bar. In 2011, Saveur magazine named the Southern Food & Beverage Museum one of the five great museums devoted to food, per the same account.
The museum's cocktail arm carried its own national pedigree. The Museum of the American Cocktail, founded in October 2004 by mixologist Dale DeGroff and a national group of beverage historians, was integrated as a permanent exhibit inside the museum in 2014 after previously operating out of the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum and in Las Vegas, according to Bartales. That cocktail division also established the annual American Cocktail Awards, known as the Olives, in partnership with the United States Bartenders Guild to honor mixology achievements nationwide, per Wikipedia.
The museum also housed La Galerie d'Absinthe. Beyond the Central City building, the foundation had already expanded its research footprint: in October 2022, it opened the SoFAB Research Center at Nunez Community College in Chalmette, establishing a public archive holding over 40,000 culinary books, menus, pamphlets and historical artifacts, per Nunez Community College. The museum board is now working through plans for what to do with the museum's exhibits and artifacts, and the foundation says it plans to preserve and present the legacy of Southern food in a different context, though what that will look like remains unresolved.
Corridor Leaders Say the Boulevard's Story Is Different
Jiarra Rayford, president of the corridor's merchant and business association, has stressed that the museum's closure is not a reflection of the health of the main street or cultural district. Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard was home to more than 200 businesses at its mid-1900s peak and earned national designation as a Great American Main Street in 2017 after previously receiving state recognition as a Louisiana Main Street Community in 2006, according to The Jaxson. Even so, Rayford has acknowledged the corridor has not reached an economic tipping point.
Other closures on the boulevard have piled up in recent years. Primitivo closed in 2017, Big Sexy Neon shut down the previous year after a half-decade on the corridor, and Casa Borrega closed in 2024 — a closure Hoodline previously noted amid rising Central City turnover. An abandoned building also collapsed on the boulevard's 1400 block in 2024, prompting evacuations that Hoodline covered at the time.
Rayford points to newer arrivals as counterweights, including Lagniappe Bakehouse, a two-year-old bakery-cafe, and Ecology Beer Creative, a brewery serving locals and nearby short-term-rental visitors. Cafe Reconcile continues to operate its nonprofit restaurant and workforce training program on the corridor, and the New Orleans Jazz & Blues Market, located across Martin Luther King Boulevard from the shuttered museum, is preparing to launch a second season of performances featuring local and national jazz artists. A new farmers market and an $80 million, 192-unit affordable housing complex are also planned signs of vitality, alongside the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment's plans for a graduate hub on the corridor. The planned projects offer an optimistic outlook for Central City and the corridor.
