Often-Asked Question With Few Answers: I have an hour or so before I have to be at the airport. Where can I get a decent fast meal with some New Orleans character around Kenner? Same answer, different question: I live/work in Kenner/River Ridge. Not too many restaurants around there. Any new ideas? Answer: Read on.
La Bella's is one of many caterers who run a small restaurant on the side. That makes use of their kitchen on weekdays when the catering biz is slow. In general, such places tend to be quite good, because they have better equipment and more reliable personnel than a freestanding cafe of the same size. La Bella's location in the oldest part of Kenner at first seems odd, but few restaurants exist in that area, so they thrive.
Joe La Bella opened a small grocery store with a butcher shop--an Italian tradition if ever there was one--in 1966. Almost immediately, his shop began evolving, first into a place where you could buy a side of beef cut any way you liked, then into a neighborhood restaurant specializing in poor boys. (I remember the latter well, when it was in the shadow of the Westgate Drive-In Theater.) By the 1980s, catering was a mainstay. The poor boys, however, never went away. La Bella's home and business were both destroyed by Katrina, but after a years or so they were back with a new location on the River Road.
The new place is a spacious, good-looking venue for a neighborhood cafe, in the part of Kenner that has seen a lot of renovation and development in recent years. The big windows running alongside the dining room give a view to the bicycle-trail-topped river levee a half-block away. (Third Street is Kenner's name for Jefferson Highway.)
Sandwiches and seafood are the best bets, but the daily specials are always worth thinking about.
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