A new food hall is opening in New Orleans blocks from St. Roch Market. Take a look inside.

A building that’s stood empty for years on a busy New Orleans intersection will soon get new life as a food hall.

Elysian Market has been quietly taking shape at 1101 Elysian Fields Ave., at the corner of St. Claude Avenue. The building had been a Beauty Plus store for two decades before that business closed in 2019.

The project has been years in the making and is now awaiting inspections, with an opening tentatively projected for after Mardi Gras.

It’s just four blocks away from the city’s last food hall, St. Roch Market, which has been undergoing its own revamp since nearly closing last summer.

A look inside

At Elysian Market a vivid mural now adorns the exterior. The interior holds a surprise. Through the sliding doors, you enter to find a gleaming space lined with individual food stands flanking the room, with a bar in the center.

Elysian Market will house a total of nine concepts, each run independently under the same roof. There will be a variety of food on offer with an emphasis on Asian flavors (see more below).

These stands are like self-contained counter service restaurants, each built out with its own kitchen and cold storage, and some with ovens, stoves and fryers as needed for the type of food served.

They're finished in faux marble paneling, and video screens over each will show menus and photos of dishes. The names on signs now marking out individual stands are place holders that will likely change once vendors move in.

Elysian Market is the creation of local businesswoman Nga Vu. She owns the property and when Beauty Plus closed she began looking for new ideas for it. She and her family run the Crystal Palace event venues in New Orleans East and Harvey, and she has food industry experience, having previously run the Capt. Sal’s seafood markets.

What's cooking

Some of the vendors are still being finalized, but Vu said the common thread between them are people with experience working in restaurants who want to open their own businesses, but not necessarily have conventional restaurants.

They are not known chefs, and these are not expansions of other existing concepts, with one exception. Zoe’s Bakery in Covington and will have a stand at Elysian Market for its cakes and pastries.

“These are people without the capital to open a restaurant, but they can come here,” Vu said. “We give them kitchens, and that’s where you make money. You don’t make money wiping tables or having to clean the restrooms. They can focus on where they make money.”

The hall will offer a variety of Asian food stands, especially Vietnamese. That includes one for pho and vermicelli bowls, another for banh mi sandwiches and Vietnamese-style desserts, and a sushi and poke bowl bar.

Other stands will be for burgers and wings, Mexican food, and, most likely, Indian food, in addition to Zoe's baked goods. 

A juice and salad bar will have fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice, and the full bar will be run by another vendor.

Vu will operate one stand herself. That’s called The Market, and it will function like a deli with prepared foods to go, including trays of sandwiches and cheese and some fresh produce, and also boiled seafood.

The bar and the sushi bar will have seats along their counters, while the other vendors will share a common seating area.

Food hall rebound?

It’s been rough sledding for the food hall concepts in New Orleans through the pandemic.

The Pythian Market and Auction House Market, both downtown, closed in 2022 (so did The Hall on Mag, a very short-lived new concept in the former Auction House that lasted just a few months).

St. Roch Market nearly closed in August, but was saved from that fate when one of the vendors stepped up to take over management. St. Roch Market has since been rebooting with a changing mix of vendors.

Vu thinks a difference for Elysian Market is the composition of its offerings. Another key, she said, is the build out of its stands, which give operators full restaurant kitchens of their own.

“They just have to bring their skills and their knives,” Vu said.

Elysian Market

1101 Elysian Fields Ave., projected opening spring 2024

Note: Murals at Elysian Market are by People for Public Art, Monica Rose Kelly, Gabrielle Tolliver, Sasha Kopfler, Lillian Aguinaga, Tyla Maiden, Journey Allen and artists from Arts New Orleans’ Young Artist Movement

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