St. Roch Market has a new operator, pledging change to save New Orleans' last food hall - NOLA.com
Kevin Pedeaux was serving coffee in St. Roch Market the day it opened as a food hall back in 2015. In the time since he’s seen the St. Claude Avenue landmark thrive in its modern incarnation, and he’s seen the ways it fell short.
What gave him dread, though, was envisioning the old marketplace shuttered, as it had been for so many years.
The front exterior of the renovated St. Roch Market on St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans on Tuesday, April 7, 2015. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune) CHRIS GRANGER
To him, the stakes are stark: Either the food hall can live up to its potential, or the historic building will again languish and a gateway for new food businesses will close.
Now it’s up to Pedeaux to steer St. Roch Market to whatever the next chapter holds.
“There are too many things in New Orleans that need action, and here’s one thing that I can do, because I know the business, because I know the building. I can’t complain about what else should be better in New Orleans if I had a shot to keep the market going and didn’t take it,” he said. “I could not look the other way.”
Kevin Pedeaux talks with visitors to St. Roch Market after taking over operations of the New Orleans food hall. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Pedeaux’s CR Coffee Shop still has a stand in the market. Last week though, he changed from vendor to operator, taking over management of St. Roch Market from Politan Row, the company that under different names has run the multi-vendor food hall since its inception. He is essentially assuming Politan Row’s lease for the city-owned property.
At this writing, he was working on insurance and other issues for the city to officially assign that lease to him.
Creole gumbo is a signature from Tina Clark, a vendor at St. Roch Market in New Orleans. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Day to day, though, he’s now in charge of St. Roch Market, and some changes are already turning up. That includes new vendors coming in, including one called Genevieve, for raw oysters, Creole gumbo and other local flavors, and another for modern Vietnamese dishes from Tung Nguyen, who ran a stand here years earlier with his T2 Street Food.
Tung Nguyen serves a bowl of pho with smoked meats at his stand in St. Roch Market in New Orleans. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
They join Indian food vendor Everything Spice, Middle Eastern food vendor Dolma, Burmese and Malaysian food vendor Laksa NOLA, sushi stand Lin Poke and Sushi, the French Stall for crepes and croque madame sandwiches, the Rooster’s Den for fried chicken, sandwiches and breakfast, and Pedeaux’s own CR coffee stand (look for an upcoming story on the food at St. Roch Market).
There’s also a bar, the Mayhaw, which Pedeaux now runs as overall market operator.
Brink of closing
St. Roch Market has a long history as a public market in New Orleans and was brought back as a food hall in 2015. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Pedeaux’s fears of a shuttered market nearly came to pass.
As reported by WWL-TV's Michael Perlstein, St. Roch Market was on the verge of shutting down altogether in August. Business had tumbled, with high turnover for vendors and dwindling customer traffic since the pandemic. A summer that has been brutal across the restaurant business brought the food hall to the breaking point.
St. Roch Market has a long history as a public market in New Orleans and was brought back as a food hall in 2015. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
The future of St. Roch Market remains highly uncertain, and Pedeaux readily acknowledges that a change in operator is no panacea.
The business has been running at a loss of about $9,600 per month, he said. He’s inheriting the same lease agreement with the city as master tenant, paying $6,500 a month; and for now, he’s keeping the same leases in place with food hall vendors, who pay either 30% of sales or $150 a day plus 15% of sales, depending on when they leased.
Jerome Grenier prepares crepes at his French Stand as a vendor at St. Roch Market in New Orleans. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Those rates could be up for assessment in the future, but for now, Pedeaux is trying to get his arms around the food hall operation he has taken on.
He is adamant that the market needs to make changes as it rolls on, rather than closing even temporarily for a reset.
“These vendors are my friends. I’ve been here with them the whole time. This is how they make their living, and we need to stay open,” he said.
It is very early going at the market, but some vendors are expressing more optimism. One of those is Jerome Grenier at the French Stall.
“I was trying to get out before, but now that Kevin has taken over, I want to give it another shot,” Grenier said.
A hall with history
ST. ROCH MARKET before renovation October 1, 1937 Photograph of the St. Roch Market (St. Roch and St. Claude Avenues). This was one of four markets overhauled by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the depression.
Originally built by the city as an open-air market in 1875, and later enclosed, St. Roch Market served its surrounding neighborhoods for generations. It was part of a network of such markets that once dotted the city, including the French Market.
The St. Roch Market at the corner of St.Roch and St. Claude Avenues in New Orleans, Wednesday March 10, 2010. (DAVID GRUNFELD/ THE TIMES-PICAYUNE ARCHIVE)
St. Roch Market fell into decline through the years, and eventually became a single-vendor seafood shop. After Hurricane Katrina, the property sat vacant and in tatters and became the subject of a slew of studies intended to guide its future. Eventually, the city allocated $3.7 million to renovate the building before seeking operators to lease it.
St. Roch Market on St. Claude Avenue, photographed Monday, November 29, 2010. (Photo by ELIOT KAMENITZ / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE ARCHIVE)
When the food hall opened in 2015 it was simultaneously cheered as an example of revitalization and ballyhooed as an emblem of gentrification.
Pedeaux, a St. Bernard Parish native, was there from day one.
At the opening of St. Roch Market in 2015, Kevin Pedeaux of Coast Roast Coffee Company with his wife Ashley pause for a cup. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
His CR Coffee (originally called Coast Roast) started as a specialty roaster, mostly serving restaurants. It now has coffee shops Uptown and Old Metairie, and also at the airport in Kenner. The St. Roch stand has been good for CR, giving it an early retail presence for its bagged beans and specialty coffee by the cup.
But Pedeaux recognizes that at least part of the controversy around the food hall at its opening was a disconnect between how it was pitched, as the return of an old market, and what people found in the newly renovated property.
St. Roch Market opening, April 10, 2015: The band from Kipp: New Orleans Leadership Academy plays outside as the historic St. Roch Market reopens. (Advocate file photo by ELIOT KAMENITZ)
Despite a small selection of produce that dressed up the entrance, St. Roch Market was a food hall designed after the modern style, with chefs in the forefront, not a public food marketplace cut from the old cloth.
“I was part of it, and I was surprised to see what it actually was when we opened,” Pedeaux said.
Today, he doesn’t expect that St. Roch will ever again be a food shopping hub. But he believes it can have something like a flex role with vendors offering more from their own inventory to shoppers — gallons of milk, quarts of juice, sliced meats, prepared dips and salads for the fridge, for instance.
CR Coffee was one of the first wave of vendors at St. Roch Market when it opened as a food hall in 2015, and it is still part of the market. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
The business Pedeaux formed to run the food hall is called Market Staples LLC, and that name points to one of his goals.
“I want the vendors here to have staples that people can bring home. It’s not going to be a grocery store. But it can be more of a market,” he said.
Food hall woes
Food hall projects had become a major trend in American cities, where they typically combine casual dining in communal areas with artisan and specialty groceries. There are longstanding templates for the model, like Pike Place Market in Seattle. Newer examples, like San Francisco’s Ferry Building, have quickly become major attractions.
Politan Row itself developed numerous new food halls in other cities just before the pandemic. Some of these closed, though the company is now growing in Atlanta, where it operates one hall and has two more in development.
Central City food court Roux Carre closed Dec. 21, 2018. The site was later redeveloped as residences.
In New Orleans though, the trend has all but collapsed. Roux Carre, an outdoor food hall developed as a nonprofit in Central City, closed well before the COVID crisis in 2018. It has since been demolished.
The food hall Auction House Market in the Warehouse District of New Orleans as it appeared in 2018. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Auction House Market opened in 2018, and was originally run by Politan Row. The building owner, Felicity Property Co., took over management of the hall in 2020, and it closed in 2022. The property at 801 Magazine St. briefly returned under new management as the Hall on Mag, but this lasted just a few months. It is now becoming a conventional restaurant, with a Boulevard American Bistro location taking shape here.
Free Wifi and plenty of plugs for laptops and devices make it easier for folks can snack and work -- or play -- at Pythian Market.
The Pythian Market, the food hall in the Pythian Building, closed in 2022, after the building changed hands and the food hall operator was evicted for failing to pay back rent. The Pythian Building is back on the market.
More than a market?
Pedeaux still believes in St. Roch Market, and since he’s taken over management he’s gotten encouraging feedback. He’s heard from organizations that want to hold events in the market, and he’s been fielding more inquires from prospective new vendors.
Tina Clark and her son Tyrone Cole at their new oyster bar and stand inside St. Roch Market in New Orleans. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
If he can bring new customers in, or perhaps bring more customers back, he believes the food hall can still be a place where new food businesses build a foothold.
Numerous earlier vendors have gone on to open their own brick-and-mortar restaurants, including Fritai, the Daily Beet, Empanola and Good Bird, to name a few. Elysian Seafood, which like CR Coffee was one of the original vendors here from 2015, left the market over the summer and is now a full-service catering company, Elysian Events.
Lin and Noe Regules run Lin Poke and Sushi and Laksa NOLA, two stands at St. Roch Market in New Orleans. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Pedeaux also believes St. Roch Market can still conjure the energy of a public market, where people drawn for different reasons find themselves on common ground.
“People care about St. Roch Market, I think they really do, that’s why I’m making this attempt,” he said. “I don’t want to see this building closed down again and wonder ‘what if.’”
2831 St. Claude Ave.
Open daily, hours vary by vendor
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