Yellow cinderblock

Circa 2009



RIP Tee Eva

When she came home to New Orleans, Mrs. Perry became a walking vendor of pies and pralines. She was a frequent, and quite welcome, visitor at City Hall, where staff would chase her down to buy her sweets.

"I'm very proud to walk the streets with my basket. I strut when I walk the streets with my basket," Mrs. Perry said in 1992, "because I'm part of a long tradition of black women who made a living and kept their independence selling pralines this way.

Mrs. Perry parlayed that business into a full restaurant on Freret Street. She quickly relocated, after her shop was vandalized, to a bright yellow cinderblock building on Magazine Street near Napoleon Avenue that became a landmark of Uptown. From the walk-up window, she sold not only baked goods, but also jambalaya, red beans and snowballs. The shop moved up Magazine Street in 2009 to the corner of Dufossat Street.

That building has been a bunch of different things since she moved out. It's been at least two different middle eastern places. I think now it's sushi... if that's still open, even. I'll have to walk by and check when I get chance.  Everything closes so quickly now.