Gumbo and Strategy at Dooky Chase's

Dooky Chase's began in 1939 as a stand selling po'boys and lottery tickets, and moved to this corner of Orleans Avenue and North Miro Street in 1941. In 1946 Edgar "Dooky" Chase Jr. married Leah Lange, who started out front as a hostess and ended up running the kitchen, becoming known as the Queen of Creole Cuisine. In the 1950s and 1960s, when local and state laws restricted gatherings across racial lines, the upstairs room became a place where civil rights organizers, Freedom Riders and leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. met to plan over gumbo and fried chicken. The restaurant was listed in the Green Book for Black travelers, took a bomb thrown from a passing car in 1965, and hung the work of Black artists on its walls. Leah Chase died in 2019, and the family still runs the dining room.