The promise of Creole comfort food has long led people to the door of Willie Mae's Scotch House.
First, that meant a devoted local clientele, who counted this backstreet Treme restaurant as an extension of home. They were later joined by throngs of visitors who had heard the high praise for its fried chicken.
Now, Willie Mae's has a second, much different location in downtown New Orleans. It's intended to give both a taste of what they're after and maybe make the original location a little easier to visit, too.
A two-piece of fried chicken with candied yams and cornbread to go from the Willie Mae's Scotch House stand at the Pythian Market food hall in downtown New Orleans.
Willie Mae's at the Market opened this week in the Pythian Market food hall.
Like the other vendors here, it's a walk-up counter that shares common dining areas and a central bar. It serves a shorter menu of the restaurant's greatest hits — fried fish, baked chicken, white beans and red beans, bread pudding, cornbread muffins and, of course, fried chicken, a wet batter recipe with a tawny crisp crust an a subtly peppery backbeat within.
It may also serve as a way for a neighborhood restaurant to get back to its roots.
“Hopefully this means we’re able to allow more people to experience Willie Mae’s,” said Kerry Seaton-Stewart, who runs the restaurant her great-grandmother Willie Mae Seaton first created.
“I really wanted to be more accessible to our longtime guests who work downtown, and to some visitors who come through and want to try us out,” she said. "I'm hoping this will take some of the pressure off the Scotch House so we can do what we do."
Kerry Seaton-Stewart and Mike Stewart operate the famous Treme restaurant Willie Mae's Scotch House.
What Willie Mae's does is feed people traditional, hearty Creole soul food, and it's been doing that for a long time.
Willie Mae Seaton started the business in 1957 as a bar, hence the Scotch House reference. Once she began cooking for her customers, it evolved into a restaurant — dishing out smothered veal, lima beans and pork chops. It continued as one of the longest-running African American owned restaurants in the city.
When Seaton died in 2015 at age 99, Kern Reese, the Orleans Parish Civil District Court judge and a restaurant regular, described why it was so important to its regulars.
Eating fried chicken at Willie Mae's Scotch House on St. Ann Street.
“It was a neutral ground kind of place,” said Reese, who started visiting as a law student in the 1970s. “People from all walks of life would be in there. You came to eat, to talk, to find fellowship; you could talk across the aisle there about anything. It felt like you had come by someone’s house and they asked you to stay for dinner.”
In 2005, the James Beard Foundation honored Seaton with its America’s Classics Award, which recognizes restaurants that “serve quality food that reflects the character of their communities.” Just months later, the restaurant and its neighborhood were devastated by the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina. A long rebuilding effort became a rallying point for a widespread community of supporters.
It’s a backstreet restaurant, the epitome of the corner joint in a city that was once full of them, and eventually the world would beat a path…
Many travel and food TV shows came calling and the restaurant quickly became a bucket list destination for foodie tourists. Today, it’s common to see a line stretching down the weatherboard flank of the St. Ann Street restaurant.
President Barack Obama stops at Willie Mae's Scotch House for lunch at St. Ann and N. Tonti Street in New Orleans during his visit to New Orleans for 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina Thursday, August 27, 2015.
In 2014, Willie Mae's opened an Uptown location at 7457 St. Charles Ave., an address that has seen many restaurants come and go. This one closed in 2017. Willie's at the Market was designed differently.
The Pythian Market debuted last year as part of the revived Pythian Hall, a high rise in the Central Business District built more than a century ago by a black fraternal organization that became a hub of African American enterprise in its day. The food hall has a broad variety of vendors, serving flavors from Middle Eastern platters (Little Fig) and Jamaican curry (14 Parishes) to wood-fired pizza (Meribo) and grilled cheese (Frencheeze).
Bread pudding to go from the Willie Mae's Scotch House stand at the Pythian Market food hall in downtown New Orleans
Seaton-Stewart said the food hall model was appealing not just because of its location but because of the fast casual format of counter service stands.
"There are people who want us to be fast casual, who come to the Scotch House and want to have quick meals and meals-to-go," she said. "But our goal there, the foundation of what Willie Mae’s does, is home style comfort. It's table service and it's a warmer experience. This way, we can offer people both."
The restaurant has been trying to accommodate more of its local clientele between. Earlier this year, it began accepting dinner reservations on weeknights (Monday to Thursday), a break from the usual first-come, first-served policy, and work-around from the usual line.
"We really just want people to be able to experience Willie Mae's, that's what this is all about," Seaton-Stewart said.
2401 St. Ann St., (504) 822-9503
10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday
Willie Mae's at the Market
Pythian Market, 234 Loyola Ave., (504) 481-9599
11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Sunday
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