A Bit of Abita

Travel Guide to Abita Springs

THE BOUTIQUE EXPERIENCE ON THE NORTHSHORE

Story and photos by Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

What’s in a name?

Shakespeare proposed that there was very little—roses and Romeos being what they were, regardless of what we called them. In the twenty-first century though, we’ve got this thing called branding.

The Town of Abita Springs has a great name. It’s entrenched in myth, evocative of historical luxury, drenched with charm, and now associated with a popular regional product, to boot. Strolling around the picturesque, endearingly-walkable historic district, the name also lends the neighborhood a delightful sense of harmony. The Abita Brew Pub. The Abita Springs Health Store. The Abita Springs Trailhead Museum. The Abita Springs Café. In a small town like this one (population 2,500), a name functions differently than those of larger

Photo courtesy of the Abita Springs Hotel

cities, such as the conspicuous metropolis across the lake. In Abita Springs, the name means something specific: it points to things locally-owned and inspired, to a coordinated effort to develop community, and to the conscious curation of a specific “Abita” experience.

My husband Julien and I recently enjoyed a quick twenty-four-hour stay at the Abita Springs Hotel—which is positioned strategically on Ann O’Brien Lane and the Tammany Trace Bike Trail, just across the town’s central roundabout.

Besides a collection of Airbnbs, today the five-room boutique hotel is the only official overnight accommodation in a town that—during the height of its reputation during the early twentieth century as a health resort—once hosted around two thousand visitors every summer. Tourism to Abita Springs declined with the end of New Orleans’ yellow fever epidemic and subsequently, the health tourism fad on the Northshore. The rise in the popularity of automobiles also contributed to a fall in tourism to Abita Springs, which had depended on traffic from nearby towns via the East Louisiana Railroad. Rather than succumb to those economic challenges, the village gradually evolved into a new chapter: a quieter, more creative one.

Photo courtesy of the Abita Springs Hotel

The Abita Springs Hotel, opened in 2018 by proprietors Rachel Hudson and Will Preble in a restored 1890s home, is a tribute to Abita Springs’ history as a hospitality wellspring as well as its modern whimsical spirit. Guests enter through the verdant back garden, which is anchored by the hotel’s centerpiece: a small pool fed by the town’s famous artesian aquifer, pouring its “healing waters” forth at five gallons a minute. Encircled cozily by a wooden fence peeking beneath a lush tangle of flora and fauna, the garden has a fairytale feel to it. A mosaic sidewalk leads to the second floor wraparound porch, where we stayed in the Parlor King Suite, inside the Queen Anne-style home’s turret.

Check-in was remote, a door code delivered to my inbox. Despite being enchanted by the exterior of the rosewater-colored cottage, I found myself struck dumb by the luxury of the room’s interior. Gorgeous wooden flooring interacted with mid-century modern light fixtures and furniture in the 700-square foot space, made bright by ample natural light and sunrise-yellow walls. Standing in the sweet little seating area to peer out the windows puts you at a perfect vantage to people-watch over the entire historic district.

Taking advantage of the hotel’s complimentary bikes (there are two and it is first-come-first-serve, but if you miss out there are rentals lined up just outside the gate), we embarked upon the Tammany Trace. If you aren’t already familiar with this Northshore treasure, then let me be the one to enlighten you. An especially beloved element of St. Tammany Parish’s creative placemaking initiatives, the Trace is a thirty-one-mile paved multi-use trail that connects Slidell to LaCombe, LaCombe to Mandeville, Mandeville to Abita Springs, and Abita Springs to Covington. The path, which once carried trains traveling from Chicago to New Orleans via the Illinois Central Railroad, is now a wooded nomadic oasis just apart from civilization, with easy access to downtown hubs, the cultural centers that are each town’s trailheads, and Fontainebleau State Park.

From the Abita Springs Trailhead, we caught the last westward leg of the Trace, heading almost four miles towards Covington. We took our sweet time, and on that gorgeously mild St. Patrick’s Day Thursday evening encountered only a handful of fellow bicyclists and runners (a few spiritedly decked out in green-clovered attire). The wildlife was not remotely bothered by our ride, squirrels prancing across the way and birds lending a mellow soundtrack to the journey, azaleas and wisteria and Louisiana Iris just emerging—painting the way with occasional dollops of color. We arrived in Covington just in time to catch the beginning of the Four Unplugged Concert at the Trailhead. Having spent a few years now drafting Country Roads’ calendar of events, I know that some of the Northshore’s most vibrant celebrations and festivals occur at the trailheads of Covington and Abita Springs. It occurred to me the ease with which locals and visitors can enjoy the cultural offerings in both of these towns via the Trace corridor—I imagined the way one might be able to ride back and forth from a Farmers’ Market in one town to a festival in the other, enjoying the bounty of the Northshore’s natural environs in between.

Photo courtesy of the Abita Springs Hotel

Back at the Trailhead and hungry, we regretfully passed up the tantalizing-buttery scents of the already-bustling Abita Brew Pub to go clean up before dinner. To satiate ourselves in the meantime, we stopped at Artigue’s Abita Market to gather the ingredients for a hotel charcuterie board and some beers. In a massive nineteenth-century building at the heart of the district, Artigue’s has held court as the village’s only grocery store for thirteen years now—offering essentials, Louisiana products like Cajun spices and smoked meats, as well as a menu of elevated daily specials (think Abita root beer-and-rum-glazed pork chops with Abita honey and cayenne) prepared by New Orleans’ award-winning Chef Trey Herty.

The customer base here is a loyal one. In 2017, when a microbrewery started to show interest in purchasing the historic building Artigue’s inhabits, members of the town fiercely stepped up for their beloved general store, creating a Facebook Page dedicated to the cause that to this day has 1,200 followers (do the math: that’s half the town), and plastering the hashtag #SaveArtiguesAbita- Market across the social media spheres. Needless to say, the brewery sought out a home elsewhere, and all these years later it was Mr. Warren Artigue himself who checked us out.

Photo courtesy of the Abita Brew Pub

After a brief respite in the comforts of our room at the Hotel—including a soak in the swanky claw-foot tub—we set out on foot for dinner at the Brew Pub.

The original home of the Southeast’s first craft brewery, the Abita Brew Pub is nestled beside the Trailhead underneath an old-growth oak decked out in fairy lights. Since 1994, when the nationally-recognized Abita Brewing Company outgrew its original building and moved down the road, the Brew Pub has been serving up interpretations of Louisiana comfort food, paired carefully with the entire line of Abita beer.

The space is casual and cozy in spirit, with an open-hearted front lawn featuring family-friendly lawn games and a back patio you can rent for private events. We sat at a table inside, relinquishing all remaining travel-induced tension in acquiescence to the dim lighting and cheerful Abita Beer ephemera plastered on the walls. Once we ordered our beers—a Purple Haze for Julien and a Strawgator (the delicate Strawberry golden lager infused with the high-gravity Andygator) for me, we agonized over the menu, with the dilemma: do we go for tried-and-true or do we go for inventive? Namely, in my case: Gouda Burger or Abita Boudin Quail? While deciding, we went ahead and ordered apps: Boudin Egg Rolls and Hot & BBQ Wings. Both lived up to their expectation, especially the savory-sweet egg rolls. While building a mountain of buffalo saucestained napkins, we watched as a waiter carried one of the most beautiful salads we’d ever seen to the table behind us. For our entrées, Julien ordered the Shrimp Agnes, which came out in the form of fried shrimp floating atop a pool of praline-esque honey pecan sauce, served with mashed potatoes and vegetables. I had ultimately decided that anything with the name “Abita” was living up to its name so far and asked for the quail— only to be told they had already sold out for the night. The burger, a substantial chunk of smokey, well-cooked meat, left me with no regrets. I only made it about halfway through, packing up the rest for a post-brewery treat.

Because naturally, we couldn’t go to Abita Springs without visiting the brewery! Except—we realized too late—the Abita Brewing Company taproom had already closed for the night that Thursday. Luckily, the Northshore always has a backup brewery on hand—and we were more than happy for the chance to try something new, anyway. Chafunkta Brewing Company is just outside Abita Springs city limits in Mandeville, and has been serving up small batch beers since 2011 when Josh Erickson and his wife Jamie decided to make their shared homebrewing hobby into a business. At the time, there were only six other breweries open in all of Louisiana—which now boasts over forty.

Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

The massive warehouse had the feel of a garage party, decked out for Chafunkta’s ninth anniversary bash set to be held the very next day. The space was filled with long folding tables and chairs, but most of the small, familiar-seeming crowd that night was gathered around the bar in the corner. From the short menu, I ordered a pint of the Chafunkta 985—a wheat ale brewed with Meyer lemons, thick and tart with a subtle sweetness perfect for the approaching summer. Julien had the easy and light inVINCEible Ale, a beer dedicated to the memory of Captain Vince Liberto, Jr., a Mandeville Police Officer who was killed on the job in 2019. All proceeds from the inVINCEible Ale go towards the Captain Vince Liberto Memorial Foundation, which benefits families and loved ones of First Responders and Military personnel whose lives are lost in service.

After Chafunkta, we headed back to the Abita Springs historic district for a nightcap at the eccentric-yet-reliable local haunt, Rosie’s Tavern. Whiskeys in hand, we settled in at a bar table and soaked in the muddling scents of cigarette smoke and something bubbling in a crockpot behind us. Locals in their work clothes and various shades of St. Paddy’s day greens played pool in the corners and whispered at the bartop. From a pillar at the bar’s center, a figurehead of a nude woman extended as though from a ship’s mast and from the ceiling, it appeared as though cypress knees were growing upside down like stalactites. As we went to close out our tab, we gently moved an egg carton out of our way to sign the receipt on the bar.

Back at the hotel, we snacked on leftovers, found Seinfeld on the fully-streaming-equipped smart TV, and eventually fell asleep to the gentle sound of rain pattering on the old house’s roof, splashing into the spring-fed pool outside.

Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

Morningside, we raced across the street in the night’s residual drizzle to nab a table at the Abita Springs Café—housed in a building that has held family businesses in Abita since 1881. Fully anticipating the gloriously-greasy standard fare of a stereotypical small-town diner, I was pleasantly surprised to discover an extensive and artful breakfast and brunch menu—offering everything from Green Tomato Eggs Sardou and banana-stuffed French toast to NOLA-style BBQ Shrimp & Cheese Grits and a flambeaux omelet. They also serve an equally impressive lunch and dinner menu, with a drink selection featuring local brews from across the Northshore and cocktails served all day long (including a shrimp and bacon Bloody Mary that Julien convinced me out of ordering).

I got myself a cup of the famous Abita Roasting Co. coffee, and Julien and I proceeded to haggle over who would get something sweet and who would get something savory. Ultimately, I couldn’t turn down a smoked salmon breakfast, and placed an order for the Eggs Alaska—which came beautifully presented on a toasted bagel with schmear, hollandaise, chives, and poached eggs from the café’s own pasture-raised chicken farm. Julien went sweet, with a hearty plate of powdered sugar-dusted praline chicken and sweet cream waffles. Before we left, I grabbed a macchiato to go, and we traipsed past the chicken coop and the adjacent snoball and coffee stands to get to one of Abita Springs’ most famous (and famously-weird) attractions: The Abita Mystery House.

The museum is the indescribable brainchild of Abita Springs artist and musician John Preble, who greeted us from his desk in the gift shop. If a movie was ever set in Abita Springs, Preble would be an indispensable Abitan character.

He moved to the village in the early 1970s with a collective of other artists, seeing the opportunity to make the quiet little town their own creative haven. Since then, Preble’s opened a temporary pottery business, engaged the community in countless revitalization efforts, and heralded wonderfully-offbeat events that include the Louisiana Art Car Festival, Louisiana Bike Festival, the Push- Mow Mardi Gras Parade, and the Abita Springs Whole Town Garage Sale. His son Will is the owner of the Abita Springs Hotel, which frequently displays Preble’s artwork, as well as that of his late wife, jewelry-maker Anne O’Brien.

Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

The Abita Mystery House, opened in 2000 as the UCM (Unusual Collections and Minitown) Museum, is Preble’s crowning achievement. A wonderland of Americana—or rather, Louisianicana—the collection of shacks and cottages filled to bursting with outlandishly-curated stuff is a glimpse into Preble’s mad-hatter mind. It’s the kind of experience you really should have more than once—a folk art vision reminiscent of George R. R. Martin’s Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, except crafted by a single artist.

Guided by tongue-in-cheek signage (“Create art and get Rich!” “This Property is Being Restored to the Jurassik Age/U.S. Park Permit Applied For” “Reduce Clutter Give Me Your Stuff”), a visitor is forced to slow oneself to take in the overlapping “exhibits”: a chandelier made of rusty wire and doorkeys, a space heater-turned-robot that resembles The Iron Giant, a wall of paint-by-numbers, loose computer parts hanging from the ceiling, innumerable post cards and photographs and stickers and bottle caps. In between the delights of tchotchkes-turned-décor are Preble’s shrines: remarkable scenes of Louisiana life crafted from knickknacks. In Rudy’s Rainbow Lounge, tiny Black dolls are posed in various stages of nightclub bliss beneath a tiny disco ball. Uncle Byron’s Toy Store is a mess of primary-colored figurines on tiny shelves right beside Aunt Chrisy’s Gun Shop—populated by miniature armymen guns and “taxidermied” toy animals on the walls. If you press a button on one diorama village, a tornado starts spinning and the walls lift off of a nearby trailer house. This is not to mention the many glass-cased specimens of creatures that include the Fiji mermaid, a wolverinegator, a “thirty-two foot alligator” with thirty-two feet, and in a boat shed outside: the massive “Amazing Bassigator”. Other delights include: a working Pacman machine, a cast of the Honey Island Swamp Monster’s footprint, and a Hot Sauce House.

Photo by Eric Lindberg, courtesy of louisiananorthshore.com

Something I love about traveling in smaller towns is the concentratedness of character that they possess: they reveal so much of themselves to you so very quickly. We loved getting to experience our taste of Abita Springs’ essence—but even still, this town’s wells run deep.

Some places we hope to get to next time:

The Abita Springs Art & Farmers’ Market

Held every Saturday at the Trailhead, this showcase of local merchants gives a true (and delicious) taste of the area’s creative, entrepreneurial, and natively-grown spirit. townofabitasprings.com/farmers-market

The Abita Springs Trailhead Museum

This historic one-room museum offers a vibrant portrait of Abita Springs’ past—from its history as a Choctaw Village, then later as a health resort town, and now as an artists’ haven. Exhibitions displaying local artists rotate throughout the year. Hours are Fridays and Saturdays 10 am–4 pm; Sundays 11 am–3 pm. Free admission. trailheadmuseum.org.

Abita Springs Opry

Held in the Abita Springs Town Hall on Saturday nights six times a year, this concert series hosts Louisiana roots artists playing old-time Country, Bluegrass, Cajun and Zydeco, Gospel, and more—all with an emphasis on preserving and presenting Louisiana indigenous music. May’s concert will be held on the 21, featuring The Bad Pennies Pleasure Makers, Pat Reedy and the Long-Time Goners, the Slick Skillet Serenaders, and the Travis Clark Band. 7 pm–9 pm. $20. abitaopry.org.