The iconic Circle Food Store is set to go up for sale Thursday (April 25) in an Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office auction after closing last year, according to sheriff’s office records.
The New Orleans Advocate first reported the sale, which appears to be the final chapter for the family-run grocery store that occupied the building up until last year. The store is saddled in millions of dollars of debt and has been at the center of a number of lawsuits, including two filed by two separate lenders seeking payment on loans.
Former lawyer for failed First NBC charged with defrauding the bank
Circle Food Store, opened at North Claiborne and St. Bernard avenues in the 1930s, served generations of customers as one of the country’s oldest African American-owned grocery stores. Photos of the flooded store circulated worldwide after Hurricane Katrina and the levee failures in 2005. Twelve years later, the image of the flooded storefront was back in the news after the city’s drainage system failed in August 2017.
In 2014, the 22,000-square-foot grocery reopened after an $8 million renovation funding by a blend of tax credits and loans, including a $1.7 million loan from First NBC Bank, a $1 million loan through the city’s Fresh Food Retailer Initiative and $4.4 million in tax credit equity. First NBC collapsed in 2017 and its loans, including Circle Food Store’s debt, were taken over by lenders from across the country.
Dwayne Boudreaux Jr., who ran the store until last year, told The Advocate the outside lenders had been more aggressive about receiving payment on loans. Court records show Boudreaux sought bankruptcy protection. The case was dismissed.
In addition to debt problems, Boudreaux filed suit against two family members accusing them of taking money from the store.
