The corner store in New Orleans does more work than its size suggests. These three have anchored their blocks for decades, and each one tells a different version of the same story: a family behind the counter, a community that kept showing up.
Circle Food Store
Circle Food Store traces back to 1854, when it operated as the St. Bernard Market, one of dozens of public food hubs the city ran between 1830 and 1940. Herbert Gabriel eventually bought out his fellow vendors and consolidated the operation into a full-service grocery, and the store took the Circle name from the streetcar turnaround at St. Bernard and North Claiboride avenues. It became the first African American-owned and -operated grocery in the city, anchoring a stretch of Claiborne Avenue that once served as a hub for Black-owned businesses before the interstate went up overhead in the 1960s.
Katrina flooded the building in 2005, and a second flood in 2018 forced another closure, but developer Sidney Torres purchased the historic structure and reopened it as Circle Food Market, folding in fresh produce, a butcher, a bakery, and a pharmacy alongside the grocery counter that built the store’s reputation in the first place.
Circle Food Store is at 1522 St. Bernard Avenue. Call ahead to confirm current hours given the store’s recent transitions.
Singleton’s Mini Mart
Beau and Laura Nguyen opened Singleton’s in 1999 in the Black Pearl neighborhood near Tulane and Loyola, and what started as a standard grocery slowly grew into a deli built around the Nguyen family’s Vietnamese heritage. The signature dish is a banh mi-inspired po’boy, pork meatballs in barbecue sauce dressed with pickled carrots and cilantro, and the shop only serves pho on Saturdays, which regulars plan their week around.
Chef Emeril Lagasse gave the Saturday pho his public endorsement, and the shop has won recognition as one of the city’s best corner stores, a title earned as much through the family’s three decades behind the counter as through any single dish on the menu.
Singleton’s Mini Mart is at 7446 Garfield Street, open Monday through Saturday from 10am to 2pm, closed Sunday. Call (504) 866-4741 to confirm current hours.
Frady’s One Stop
Frady’s sits at the corner of Piety and Dauphine in the Bywater, a cash-only operation that has outlasted nearly every comparable corner store in the city. The setup is straightforward: a grocery counter in front, a hot kitchen behind it, and a daily blue plate special that runs through the Creole rotation of red beans, jambalaya, meatloaf, and fried catfish. The roast beef po-boy has its own following, and the bread pudding closes out most visits correctly.
Frady’s is at 3231 Dauphine Street, open Monday through Friday from 7:30am to 3pm and Saturday from 10am to 3pm. Call (504) 949-9688 to confirm current hours.
