Vaucresson Sausage Co. returning to its roots in the 7th Ward
By: Andrew Valenti, Reporter December 11, 2020
Finally, Vaucresson Sausage Co. has come back to the 7th Ward.
The Vaucresson family will be returning to its roots at 1800 St. Bernard Ave. more than 15 years after Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters swamped the area and displaced the business.
Local business leaders and City of New Orleans officials gathered Friday at the corner of St. Bernard Avenue and North Roman Street to celebrate the announcement.
The 3,000 square-foot property, blighted and laden with graffiti, will be the future home of Vaucresson Creole Café and harken back to the old-style New Orleans diners, with counter service and a menu of po-boys and traditional Creole dishes. There will also be a market deli where the family’s trademark sausage will be made and sold on site.
Two apartments offered at 60% of the area median income will be located on the second floor. Construction is expected to wrap up on the $2 million development by the end of 2021.
“I feel thankful and humbled,” said Vance Vaucresson, the third-generation proprietor of the Black-owned business. “We’ve been trying to put this together and trying to find a way. We’re just thankful that people have stepped up and seen the value in our brand and what we can bring to the community.”
He said one of the biggest hurdles in returning to the neighborhood was obtaining the necessary financing.
“A lot of us may have some assets in property, but we may not have the liquidity in order to really come to the table with a lot of financial institutions,” Vaucresson said. “A lot of us also may not know about all the opportunities you have when you can look and seek out help from local, regional and federal funding as well as government entities and non-profits that will allow us to utilize their resources to make some of these deals come to fruition.”
Crescent City Community Land Trust will serve as the project’s co-developer. The nonprofit provides permanent stewardship of property and the permanent affordability of housing on it and has sold five homes in the Lower 9th Ward under this model.
Partners in the endeavor include Liberty Bank and Edgar Chase III, son of the late chef Leah Chase of the iconic Dooky Chase Restaurant. Funders include the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, the State of Louisiana and City of New Orleans.
Vaucresson Sausage Co. has been an anchor in the 7th Ward since its inception in 1899. Founder Levinsky Vaucresson migrated from France to New Orleans and worked as a butcher around the turn of the 20th century before passing the business on to his son, Robert “Sonny” Vaucresson. Sonny decided to switch gears and focus on sausage making and named the business the Vaucresson Sausage Co.
“I am here to ensure you that the City of New Orleans will double down in every way to meet our small businesses where they are, so they can continue to thrive in this city,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell said. “The time is now.”
A report released in October by Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business shows that entrepreneurs of color face significant differences in getting loans and are less likely to have high revenue and profit margins compared to white entrepreneurs.
According to the report, entrepreneurs of color were less likely to receive traditional bank loans (8% vs. 16%) and angel investment (11% vs. 23%) than their white counterparts.
Other Black business owners have said another factor is the percentage of bankers that have people of color or minorities as their clients. These relationships, she said, are crucial because the banker can personally vouch for this person and extend the loan at a reasonable rate even if the underlying numbers don’t back up the institution’s traditional practices.
