After 50 years, Dew Drop Inn to reopen in New Orleans
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The Dew Drop Inn will have a pool with daily drop-in passes available. Rendering: Dew Drop Inn Hotel & Lounge
Once a must-stop for every Black R&B artist who traveled through New Orleans, the long-defunct Dew Drop Inn is getting new life this fall thanks to a local developer.
Why it matters: The once-blighted, Green Book-listed hotel and Chitlin' Circuit music venue is a part of New Orleans music history.
What's happening: New Orleans developer Curtis Doucette hopes to have the Dew Drop Inn up and running in November.
- The property will include 17 hotel rooms, a live music venue, a restaurant and a pool with daily drop-in passes available.
- Each hotel room will feature pictures and narratives about people who spent time at or contributed to the Dew Drop in some way, Doucette tells Axios New Orleans.
What he's saying: "The history is the biggest inspiration for doing the project," Doucette says. "It's such a special treasure to the city of New Orleans, and its biggest need was probably my biggest strength, which is the ability to pull together complex financial solutions."
Flashback: The Dew Drop Inn had its heyday in the 1940s through 1960s, when artists like Ray Charles and Little Richard would stop in, according to WWOZ's A Closer Walk
- The property closed around the time of the death of its original owner, Frank Painia, in 1972.
