Building Community in New Orleans, LA

Casa Borrega, a Mexican restaurant, stands on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, across the street from Hope Credit Union. One of the restaurant owner’s, Linda Stone (the other owner is her husband, Hugo Montero), acknowledges HOPE for its addition to the revitalization of the area. Post-Katrina, “we were actually the first new business on Oretha,” she says. There were nonprofits, but no businesses. What used to be a ghost town is now revitalized with retail and residential spaces. Stone and her two sons moved to New Orleans from Texas six weeks before the big storm. “We’d been living in San Antonio, missed New Orleans, so we came back.” Less than two months later, the storm hit and forced them to move back to San Antonio to an empty home with her husband, who’d stayed behind to sell the house. It took a couple years to get back, the restaurateur says, but once back the family knew they wanted to do something for the community as the Crescent City’s regeneration was taking place. “My husband is from Mexico City, and I’m from California. Neither of us had ever found any Mexican food that we liked here. Not only that … there were a lot of Latinos here, but not a lot of Mexicans, and we wanted to celebrate the culture.” So the couple began searching for a building to rent and found nothing. As chance would have it, destiny dreamed an even bigger dream for them. Because of a HOPE loan, Stone now serves food to Casa Borrega customers in a building constructed in 1891 that she owns where two sisters once ran a thrift store. “The people from HOPE have been really helpful. They wanted us to succeed,” Stone says after pausing momentarily. In the tradition of the building, Casa Borrega isn’t just a restaurant; it’s becoming a cultural center. And for the restaurant? They’re looking to expand. “We discovered our kitchen’s too small. … We’ve been looking into buying a food truck so that we can do more catering and bring parties to people, even if we can’t do it here,” Stone says. Laissez les bons temps rouler! Wait. Deja los buenos tiempos pasar! Argh. Let the good times roll!