NEW ORLEANS From Bienville to Bourbon Street to bounce. 300 moments that make New Orleans unique.

WHAT HAPPENED Dooky Chase’s 1718 ~ 2018 Restaurant opened 300 in 1941. TRICENTENNIAL

Dooky Chase’s Restaurant was opened in 1941 as Dooky Chase’s legacy in Creole cuisine may only a bar and po-boy shop by Emily and Edgar “Dooky” Chase Sr. In 1946, their son Edgar Chase Jr. married be eclipsed by its role in the civil rights movement. Leah Lange Chase. Chase, who grew up in Madi- sonville, had a bigger vision for the po-boy shop, and Dooky Chase was a po-boy shop over time, turned it into a sit-down restaurant and bar until Leah featuring the Creole cooking of her youth. Chase married Dooky Chase Jr. During the 1960s, Dooky Chase’s became and she started a safe haven for the civil rights movement. remaking the National figures including Andrew Young, restaurant. Revius Ortique, Thurgood Marshall, Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr., and lo- cal civil rights leaders including Oretha Cas- Hot sausage, chicken and red beans and rice on the tle Haley, A.P. Tureaud, Ernest “Dutch” Mo- lunch buffet rial, met frequently in Dooky Chase’s upstairs dining room to talk about the movement. The restaurant hosted strategy discussions for the Free- dom Riders and black voter registration drives. Leah Chase’s legacy has grown through the years as she mastered Creole dishes like gumbo and shrimp Clemenceau. John Besh and Emeril Lagasse have both said that Chase has perfected Creole cuisine. ASSOCIATED PRESS ASSOCIATED PRESS Dooky Chase’s has a gained a national following, with celebrities with celebrities like Ray Charles and Hank Aaron and presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama among those who have eaten at the restaurant. That following that helped Dooky Chase’s reopen after Hurricane Katrina, though it took two years to rebuild the restaurant. The restaurant is also known for Leah Chase’s collection of art by African-American artists, which Dooky and Leah Chase along with Dutch adorns the restaurant walls. Morial, cutting the ribbon on a 1984 Leah Chase in 2006 before her restaurant reopened Leah Chase with then Sen. Barack Obama when he visited in Dooky Chase Jr. died in 2016. At 94, Leah Chase renovation of the restaurant. after Hurricane Katrina. 2008 in front of one her pieces of art. still works in the restaurant’s kitchen.