The summer hasn’t been kind to New Orleans. Three of the city’s most famous musicians have died in less than two months . Between the loss of these artists, chef Leah Chase, and now Gene’s Po'Boys—a famous mom-and-pop restaurant on the edge of the Marigny neighborhood that was known for its late-night sandwiches, daiquiris, and video poker—the Big Easy will lose a bit more of the funkiness for which it’s known and loved.

Citing rising taxes, insurance, and a shrinking clientele in the post-Katrina market, owner Eugene Joseph Theriot told The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate in June that he listed the building at 1040 Elysian Fields Ave. on the market in February for approximately $5 million. Since then, the building was sold and will reportedly be turned into condominiums. The daiquiri shop next door closed in 2018 and sold for almost $900,000 , according to The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate.

"The gravy—the fuckin’ gravy—that’s what everybody loved," said 39-year-old Carlos Smith, a former employee of Gene’s who now works at South Market Pub and Grill on St. Joseph Street. "People would get upset if you didn’t have the gravy."

The neighborhood has rapidly changed since the storm, which left many local businesses shuttered for good.

Theriot didn’t respond to numerous interview requests from MUNCHIES. In a YouTube video, Theriot said he hoped to save hundreds of thousands of dollars by installing an electronic ordering kiosk . Despite this measure, business hasn’t been the same since before Hurricane Katrina in 2005 .

Smith added that a new streetcar line, which went operational in 2016 with a route running from the French Quarter to Gene’s, brought more business. But a report released by Ride New Orleans, a transit advocacy group, in 2017 showed the streetcar didn’t provide the economic boom that was hoped for.

Palmer believes there’s a confluence of things that add to the ever-changing face of the city, including the perfect storm of city’s distinct housing architecture and the intrusion of short-term rentals, which she believes contribute to the rise of property values—an idea associated with gentrification .

"After Katrina, there’s a heightened sense we keep losing things that were in our childhood, that were in our lives," New Orleans City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer told MUNCHIES. "For three or four years after Katrina, I’d be working here every day, and you kind of drove around New Orleans with this bittersweet melancholy that you couldn’t quite put your finger on."

On August 8, the city council voted to restrict short-term rentals.

Michael Patrick Welch, a local journalist (and occasional writer for VICE) and teacher who also holds the honor of having inspired a Gene’s daiquiri flavor called the Sweet Pussy (because the original name for the mix of peach and white Russian flavors was considered too profane), tells MUNCHIES, "[Gene’s] was a cute symbol of the neighborhood and that symbol is being taken away. It’s more like the face of things changing."

According to cookbook author and New-Orleans-native-turned-Los Angeles resident Lolis Eric Elie, his hometown is starting to look less like the place where he grew up in and more like the rest of America.

Across the street from Gene’s to the north is a Walgreens and one block south sits a Starbucks. Across the street to the east is an upscale Whole Foods-esque (albeit local) grocery chain.