Dunbar’s Creole Cooking has found a new home at Loyola a year after Hurricane Katrina flooded its former Freret Street location.
The family-owned restaurant, well known for its all-you-can-eat fried chicken and red beans and rice, opened Monday on the Broadway Campus in the space formerly occupied by the Pine Street Cafe. Hours of operation are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday, with the same hours on Saturday to test the possibility of being open seven days a week.
“This was a match made in heaven,” said Chris Cameron, director of student activities. “We needed something big on the Broadway Campus for law students, Cabra [Hall] residents and for faculty and staff.”
The Dunbar family had been looking to reopen their restaurant, said Peggy Ratliff, daughter of owner Tina Dunbar. Before landing a deal with Loyola, they had looked at Tulane, she said, but were told the university’s dining services were already contracted out.
“There was never a doubt about reopening. We just kept searching for a place,” Ratliff said.
Tulane told the family that Loyola was looking for a New Orleans-style restaurant. Tulane then contacted Loyola with the Dunbars’ information.
Cameron said a plan to open Dunbar’s on the Broadway Campus was in place within a week after Loyola was initially approached about relocating the restaurant to the Pine Street Cafe location.
Cameron said Loyola and Sodexho Alliance, which manages Loyola Dining Services, had been looking for a new dining experience at the former Pine Street Cafe location for about six years and Dunbar’s was the best option.
While they have a new home, the family hasn’t abandoned their former building. They plan to reopen the Freret Street location in about a year, Ratliff said. But because they didn’t have flood insurance, all repairs are being paid for out of pocket, she said. That location took on about six feet of water in the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.
The Broadway Campus location – a scaled-down version of the old restaurant – will remain open after the Freret location is operating again.
In the meantime, Ratliff said, no one will be turned away for not being a Loyola student. “The public is welcome here,” Ratliff said of the new location. “But, with a full-fledged Dunbar’s, we’d have road blocks and the students wouldn’t always be able to eat.”
“It’s such a fit,” Cameron said of adding Dunbar’s to the campus. He said this is one way he believes Loyola can help rebuild the city.
Dunbar’s opened on the corner of Oak and Leander Streets in 1985 and moved to its Freret Street location in 1989.
