NEW ORLEANS — The Pythian Market has permanently closed, according to an announcement on the food hall’s official website.
“After four years in business, our food hall Pythian Market has closed. Thank you all for your support and patronage over these past years,” wrote the Pythian’s management team in a Dec. 28 message.
Debuting in 2018 at 234 Loyola Avenue in the Central Business District, the Pythian was home to roughly 10 food and drink vendors, including Willie Mae’s, La Cocinita and Bub’s NOLA. Their fate is uncertain.
The announcement came weeks after reports surfaced that the food hall team owed back rent totaling approximately $2.5 million.
The Pythian, constructed in 1908, was acquired in 2015 and redeveloped by ERG Enterprises, the Crescent City Community Land Trust and Green Coast Enterprises, a real estate development company. The mixed-use building features 69 apartments, event spaces and the first-floor food hall. Some Green Coast executives also own Pythian Market, which hasn’t been to pay its $89,000 monthly rent in full since the start of the pandemic, according to a report in the daily paper. More than half of the market’s expected income was expected to come from event rentals on the building’s second and third floors, said the report, but the pandemic changed the equation.
In October, ERG Enterprises bought out Green Coast’s and Crescent City’s shares of the building. In November, ERG served the Pythian Market’s operators with an eviction notice. Then, earlier this month, ERG and Green Coast worked out a deal in eviction court to keep the food hall open through December.
ERG has said it would like to keep to the food hall open under new management, but there is no news on that front yet.
