by CSB Staff •
August 8, 2018 •
Development, New Orleans East •
Comments (2) •
410388
New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson announced yesterday that she would be opening a new, 80,000 square foot Dixie Brewery at a vacant site in New Orleans East.
Benson purchased the brand from owners Joseph and Kendra Bruno a year ago, and at the time announced plans to move brewing back to the Crescent City.
Plans call for investing $30 million to convert the 14 acre property into a brewery, tap room, and outdoor park and amphitheater. The brewery will generate 60 jobs and have a capacity of 1,000 barrels per month.
Dixie Beer was founded in New Orleans in 1907 and was produced in New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina, when the brewery was destroyed and production was moved to a Wisconsin brewer.
The brewery’s site is the former MacFrugal’s distribution center at 3501 Jourdan Road in New Orleans East. Woodward Design+Build is the general contract and Spackman Mossap Michaels is the landscape architect.
Check out the renderings below.
Rendering of the new Dixie Brewery via Dixie Brewing Co./Woodward Design+Build
Rendering of the new Dixie Brewery via Dixie Brewing Co./Woodward Design+Build
Rendering of the new Dixie Brewery via Dixie Brewing Co./Woodward Design+Build
Does anyone have a problem with the resurgence of the word “Dixie”? I think it’s bad news to throw heroicism of the Confederate South into the marketplace, particularly given the wisdom most are acquiring about the proliferation of Confederate monuments – bullying tactics against African-Americans that were erected well after the Civil War. I hope this beer company will put their nostalgia for the old South aside and think about what they are really encouraging their market to valorize.
the word ‘Dixie’ actually relates more to French colonialism than slavery. Dix is the French word for 10. I am fuzzy on exact dates but as settlers moved from the upper mid-west to New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase, there was some difficulty communicating. A 10 dollar note at that time had dix printed on it and thus the word dixie was born. It’s a slang word for paper money..