It’s Mardi Gras season in Louisiana in a year like none other. The coronavirus pandemic brought an abrupt halt to annual balls and parades, and "donning a
photo: Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee
From a bead-bedecked gallery on St. Charles Ave., masked revelers designed by Sean Gautreaux peer down the parade route for the bands that will play again next Mardi Gras.
When the mayor of New Orleans cancelled Mardi Gras 2021 late last November, crews sheathed their half-built floats in plastic to await better times, and Caroline Thomas, a Mardi Gras artist, called her old friend Devin De Wulf with an idea.
Since March, De Wulf, founder of the Krewe of Red Beans, has spearheaded efforts to support New Orleanians effected by the pandemic through Feed the Front Line and Feed the Second Line, hiring out-of-work musicians and restaurant workers to prepare and deliver food to E.R. staff and Mardi Gras Indians, members of Social Aid & Pleasure clubs and other community elders. Now, there was a new opportunity to help those who create and sustain New Orleans’s culture.
Del Fuego is part of the Krewe of House Floats’ Audubon Riverside subkrewe.
Two more storefront floats have appeared along Magazine Street this week – at Del Fuego Taquería and McEnery Residential. One is part of the Krewe of House Floats subkrewe for the Audubon Riverside neighborhood, and the other joined up with the Krewe of Read Beans’ “Hire a Mardi Gras Artist” project.
Chef Dave Wright at Del Fuego Taquería summed up their decision to make a storefront float this way: “We’re all really going to miss the parades this year, so when the Krewe of House Floats was formed, we jumped on the idea of celebrating Mardi Gras in our neighborhood. Our ‘Krewe of House Margarita’ is where it’s at!”