For anyone who has spent years on Florida’s Gulf Coast hunting a proper debris po’boy or a real snowball, the search kept coming up empty — until now. Brett Blanchard moved to Florida in 2001 and spent years watching the area serve up watered-down approximations of New Orleans food. His response: open New Orleans Original himself. The café takes over the former Gili’s Kitchen at 188 E. Granada Blvd., beachside Ormond Beach, with an early September opening. Blanchard runs it with his wife Alisa and their kids Briana, Joey, and Brad. The family’s stated mission is blunt — “true, to the bone, New Orleans food.”
A Menu That Earns Its Place
Ten items done right beats thirty done badly — and this kitchen knows the difference.
Real New Orleans cafés run a tight menu, and New Orleans Original mirrors that discipline: around ten core items, each carrying decades of tradition. Stacked with four Italian meats, provolone, and a house-made olive salad, the muffuletta anchors the savory lineup. French bread is shipped directly from New Orleans — no local substitutes. The shrimp po’boy comes loaded with nearly three-quarters of a pound of shrimp, which is why half portions are available. Breakfast po’boys pair egg and cheese with andouille, capicola, or debris meat. Beignets and king cake cover the sweet side.
What’s on the menu:
- Muffuletta: four Italian meats, provolone, house-made olive salad
- Po’boys on imported New Orleans French bread — shrimp, fried chicken thigh, debris
- Snowballs: ultra-finely shaved ice with flavored syrups, closer to Italian ice’s Louisiana cousin than any snow cone
- Wine-based frozen daiquiris and Café Du Monde Coffee and Chicory
- Friday and Saturday oyster nights: fried oysters, oyster po’boys, chargrilled oysters
Filling a Gap No One Else Bothered to Close
The debris po’boy carries an 80-year pedigree — and Ormond Beach is about to find out what it’s been missing.
The debris po’boy is where Blanchard’s credentials show. The dish traces back to Mother’s Restaurant in New Orleans in the late 1930s, where slow-cooked roast beef scraps and drippings — called “debris” — became their own sandwich. Blanchard’s version uses chuck roast cooked down with onions and peppers, then crisped on a griddle for an intensely flavored, textured filling. Most Florida operators, he says plainly, couldn’t replicate it because “they don’t know what it is.”
The king cake situation tells you everything about his commitment. Blanchard drives ten hours to New Orleans, where a friend makes them, then hauls them back to Florida. He plans to start with roughly 100 cakes and gauge demand from there — in New Orleans, bakeries move thousands over a single weekend.
The 2,000-square-foot space seats nearly 70, with Mardi Gras epoxy countertops swirling in purple, green, and gold, and French doors that open onto Granada Blvd. to blend indoor and outdoor flow. Weekend specials — gumbo, red beans and rice, jambalaya — rotate based on customer votes via social media. “We knew it when we saw it,” Blanchard said of the property. “This is what we were looking for.”
New Orleans Original opens early September at 188 E. Granada Blvd., beachside Ormond Beach. Reach them at 386-236-8393 or their Facebook page. The real thing, no flight required.
