500 Po Boys: Arabi Food Store

RL Reeves Jr is eating 500 po boys in Louisiana
Of course none of that matters if the food is not good.
We were standing in a crowded bar in Uptown New Orleans last week when the conversation turned, as it always does, to po boys. A few old favorites were volleyed about (Domilise’s, Bobby’s, Rampart Food Store) til one crusty old timer offered that Arabi Food Store was his favorite.

Arabi Food Store 650 Friscoville Ave, Arabi, LA 70032
St Maurice Grocery founder Elliot Gaspard was robbed on a 9th Ward street corner by local brigand Ray Connor aka Ray Collins in 1963. Connor got a $1000 but he also got nabbed two days later by cops in Lafayette.
Gaspard wasn’t one to let a 9th Ward tough guy dissuade him from success, the entrepreneur plowed onward with his dreams and with his purchase of a Friscoville Avenue grocery from the heirs of Rosolino Papania in 1973 his vision was set to become reality.

The council for the preservation of the po boy sandwich approves of Arabi Food Store
But we’re only in it for the po boys.
The little cafe offers all the standards that New Orleanians have come to expect over the years but with memories of that savage cold front that just left the area we’re deeply interested in a fat roast beef po boy with plenty gravy to chase the winter blues away.

Telephone Arabi Food Store at (504) 277-2333
Leidenheimer provides the bread for the storied restaurant. One end of our loaf has gone mysteriously stale but we power through as there is plenty gravy to make up for the setback.
Price is right at just over $7

Rosolino Papania opened a grocery in the Arabi Food Store building in 1937
The streets are smooth, and the po boys are cheap. Could a new Bohemian utopia be in the making?
Little neighborhood cafes like Arabi Food Store used to be chockablock across the region but they’re slowly dwindling. As we prepare to leave, Max Landry is spinning a yarn to a table of workmen wearing paint-spackled Dickie work pants.

We wish every po boy shop in New Orleans had a stand bursting with Zapp’s chips
Notes
Arabi Food Store received approbation in the form of several “Golden Poor Boy” awards from the Underground Gourmet aka Richard Collin, an old New Orleans newspaperman who was a noted trenchermen in our town’s golden era of the 70s
Arabi Food Store
650 Friscoville Ave
Arabi, LA 70032
telephone
(504) 277-2333
Hours of operation
always call ahead
Research links:

Max Landry surveys the kitchen at Arabi Food Store
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