Mama Kat: Frenchmen and Decatur, from the ’70s til today

This Frenchmen history comes from an afternoon in 2019, when I [Laura] bumped into Kathleen “Mama Kat” Barrow on the sidewalk outside Blue Nile. I can’t remember where either of us was going that day, but likely as not, Mama Kat had her tambourine in her walker basket and was on the way to shake it on the dancefloor in Café Negril or the Spotted Cat.

Mama Kat, 2019: I’ve been hanging out around here for about forty years. I started working on Decatur Street around that time. I used to be in a shop on Decatur, where I did collectibles and antiques. 

I’m just retiring—I’m getting out of it right now—because I’m really, really tired. I’m 72 years old. I’m old! [laughter]

I live over there in the senior citizens’ apartment [The Christopher Inn]. I’ve been there for ten years. When I got in there, I had never lived in the Marigny. I had lived in the Bywater, I lived in Tremé, and I lived Uptown—I grew up Uptown—but I’d never lived in and around here.

When I first started hanging out here on Frenchmen, this [gestures at the Blue Nile] was the only place. It wasn’t the Blue Nile then; I can’t remember what the name of it was. [The Dream Palace, opened in 1976 by Alan Langhoff, originally occupied the Blue Nile building.]

And there was the big club down the street that everybody goes to—not the Spotted Cat, that came later: Snug Harbor. Best burgers in town. I used to eat there a lot. Now I can’t afford it!

[Gesturing across the street:] See that building over there? Dat Dog? That was an empty lot, and bordering it on the side of the Apple Barrel’s building was a wonderful painting. You can go in there and you can see a copy of it on the back wall: a painting of man digging, doing archaeological digs, right there on the corner. He was not from here, the guy that was doing the dig, but there’s a nice painting of him on the back wall in the Apple Barrel. 

Now, the Apple Barrel back then wasn’t really a music club, but upstairs was always a restaurant that they rented out. It was under various names over the years. Before Adolfo had it, he cooked for a guy called Alberto. They’re both from South America—I think Uruguay or somewhere like that, no big-name country, you know? Anyway, they really didn’t want to rent it to him, the owners, so Adolfo came up here [points to different building; unfortunately I cannot remember which] and started his restaurant. He had a restaurant up here for three years before they let him run over there [at the Apple Barrel]. It’s strange … Little strange things happen on a whim.

And 13: before it was 13, it was some sort of warehouse. It went all the way to the middle of the block, and then it curved that way and went left—it was an L-shaped building. It changes with the times, you know? They wanted more music clubs down in there. Well, they thought they wanted more music clubs down in there. They saw what Brasil and the other places did. 

And then came the Spotted Cat, and then Café Negril. Café Negril, when it opened up, was basically Caribbean-style music. That’s why Bob Marley’s up there [referring to the mural inside Café Negril]. They’ve become two of the best music clubs on the street. Everybody goes to both places. 

There’s Palm Court too, down on Decatur. Palm Court is a really good one too. 

Published 1/23/2023.

Note: If there are any errors in this transcription, they are likely due to the fact that our conversation was competing with street noise and live jazz on the recording.