As a child, Shannon Prince rode her bike through the streets of her Mid-City neighborhood with friends, devising plans of how to stay out past sunset, and imagining the grand things she would some day accomplish.
A favorite stop on her bike excursions was always Bud’s Broiler, whether it was to purchase a charbroiled hamburger (for those in the know, the #1) or a cherry pie with her grandpa. One day, while riding with her brother at the age of ten, Ms. Prince decided that when she grew up, she would purchase and run a Bud’s Broiler. Coincidentally, as it so often happens, she grew up. Yet what happens more infrequently, perhaps, is that her childhood resolution became a reality, and in April 2009 Ms. Prince assumed the role of sole proprietor at Bud’s Broiler City Park Avenue. What had been her childhood burger joint became her grown-up business.
Bud’s Broiler City Park Avenue is the first establishment of what has grown to be a seven-Bud’s family. In 1958 Bud Saunders opened his first broiler, which was catapulted to iconic status by its signature charbroiled patties and famously secret hickory-smoked sauce. Beyond its food, however, is the community it feeds, which was in Mr. Saunders’ time and remains in Ms. Prince’s, the reason for Bud’s Broiler’s popularity. Bud’s is a community restaurant—the kind that brings familiar faces back for weekly visits, families in after Saturday baseball games, and those who grew up on Bud’s but have since moved to stop their cabs on their drive to the airport “because they can’t leave their old town without getting a burger from Bud’s,” says Ms. Prince. It is precisely this community connection that separates Bud’s Broiler from other fast hamburger institutions, and Ms. Prince intends to keep it that way.
Actively seeking new ways to enhance Bud’s community, Ms. Prince and her staff are avid recyclers and strong supporters of New Orleans-based artists, showcasing local work on Bud’s walls in the ongoing and ever-changing exhibition “I’ve Been Framed.” Through Bud’s Broiler, Ms. Prince and her staff endeavor to “create a community everyone is proud to be a part of.” Their latest local initiative happens to be right up Bud’s Broiler’s alley, both literally and figuratively. The Lafitte Corridor, a community-driven initiative seeking to implement a linear greenway that passes by Bud’s back entrance, aims to unite greater numbers of New Orleanians with more of the city they call home.
Beginning at Basin Street just outside of the French Quarter and extending three miles toward City Park through the Treme and Mid-City, the Lafitte Corridor brings together historically important and currently relevant locales within New Orleans. Once a transportation route and industrial zone, then a decaying and seemingly forgotten about strip of land, a few visionary citizens formed the organization known as Friends of Lafitte Corridor, or FOLC. They realized the potential for The Lafitte Corridor to act as a greenway, connecting all of us in a scenic, safe and healthy manner. Since 2006, these visionaries have become activists within the New Orleans community to promote awareness for the Lafitte Corridor.
Hosting annual hikes through what will, with various grants and increased public participation, become an accessible greenway to all, the leaders of the hike ask two things: participation and imagination. They ask that we envision the parts of the Corridor, which are now weed-ridden, transformed into bike paths and community gardens, and that we recognize the potential in the spaces covered in debris and bisected by roadways as staging areas for sports tournaments and family picnics. FOLC hopes that we will, as a community, rally around the Lafitte Corridor as a passageway to a cleaner, more inclusive, and friendlier future, connecting neighbors and neighborhoods to one another in an environmentally conscious way.
The Corridor runs through areas that shape our present through our past, including Louis Armstrong Park built upon the famed Storyville section of New Orleans, Faubourg Lafitte Public Housing, and Bayou St. John. It will serve as a vein coursing through New Orleans, available to all. The Corridor is intended to be enjoyed by walkers, runners, bikers, families and friends, and to provide a different skyline than we’ve become accustomed to as each of us approach or leave the downtown area.
The Lafitte Corridor will also benefit businesses by creating a wider berth of accessibility for tourists of what would otherwise remain undiscovered gems throughout the city. The Corridor will be a welcomed respite from the trappings of Bourbon Street, allowing freer movement through alternative and deserving parts of New Orleans. The potential for increased pedestrian traffic serves as a source of excitement for many businesses along The Lafitte Corridor, Bud’s Broiler included.
Ms. Prince is elated at the possibility of sharing Bud’s Broiler’s famous flavors, as well as its community-based charm, with patrons new to the iconic burger joint. The completion of The Lafitte Corridor will provide enhanced means of access to New Orleans, and allow a new generation of children to ride their bikes laughing with their families, exploring with their friends, and just maybe, as in the case with Ms. Prince, imagining the grand things they too will accomplish in a world so new to them.
Shannon Prince’s Bud’s Broiler is located at 500 City Park Avenue and is open 24 hours a day. Bud’s Broiler City Park Avenue can be reached at (504) 486-2559.
The annual Friends of Lafitte Corridor informational hike takes place Saturday, April 16 at 10 AM beginning from Louis Armstrong Park in the parking lot near Mahalia Jackson Theatre. The hike is free and open to all. For more information, please visit http://folc-nola.org/
