In a report by Where NOLA Eats, Justin Devillier said in April, "The first rule of a neighborhood Italian restaurant is that it needs to be in a neighborhood," explaining why he and his wife, Mia, chose the old Upperline Restaurant space at 1413 Upperline Street for their next project. The couple already run La Petite Grocery at 4238 Magazine Street. The new place sits about eight blocks from it.
Upperline opened in 1983 under JoAnn Clevenger, who ran it as a place where cuisine, art and community came together. It closed during the pandemic and stayed closed. Their project will bring a new restaurant to the address. They also learned that the building had housed Italian restaurants before Upperline did.
That detail explains most of what is changing in Uptown restaurants this fall. The names on the doors are turning over quickly. The addresses keep their old jobs.
A Second Floor Put to New Use
Daughter's Neighborhood Italian, the Devilliers' new restaurant, is slated to open this fall. No exact date has been announced. The restaurant will seat about 100. It will keep Upperline's layout, a progression of rooms across two buildings that were joined long ago, with the entrance in the same spot. It opens onto a bar and a first dining room the designers imagine as darker, closer to a cocktail den. A few steps up is the sunny garden room lined with windows, then a pair of connected main dining rooms.
The biggest change is upstairs. In the Upperline years the second floor held storage, and before that a hair salon. Daughter's will turn it into private dining rooms for up to 40 seated guests or 60 at a reception, reached through an existing but rarely used entrance on Pitt Street. Studiowest is the architect and interior designer, and Arch Builders is the general contractor.
La Petite Grocery, for comparison, occupies a building that has stood for more than a century and opened as a restaurant in March 2004. The Devilliers have run it for roughly two decades, and Daughter's is the first time they have branched out. Their first expansion is an address that is itself a landmark of Uptown dining.
Three Kitchens Trading Up
Daughter's is one of three high-profile moves that share a pattern. A small kitchen with a following takes over a larger address that already has a history.
| Kitchen | Where it was | Where it's going | What's confirmed | Still open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daughter's Neighborhood Italian | Newly formed by the La Petite Grocery team | 1413 Upperline St., former Upperline Restaurant | About 100 seats, second-floor private dining, fall 2026 opening | Exact opening date |
| Dakar NOLA | A cottage on Magazine Street with two seatings a night | 937 Leonidas St., the former Mat & Naddie's space in the Riverbend | Open, with reservations released two weeks at a time | Seat count of the new room |
| Dr. Jones | 1325 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie | 4842 Tchoupitoulas St., former Wonderland and Sea | Elevated bistro fare continues | Name, opening date, whether it stays BYOB |
Dakar NOLA's move is the most complete. Chef Serigne Mbaye and his co-owner left the Magazine Street cottage, and the restaurant's own site now lists 937 Leonidas Street, with reservations released two weeks at a time. The site also warns that ride-share apps may still send guests to the old Magazine Street address. Where Y'at Magazine reports that the Riverbend location keeps the tasting menu in a private dining room and adds a more casual à la carte menu of Senegalese street food on the covered patio. That gives the restaurant two ways to serve a table in one building, something the two-seating cottage was not set up to do. In fall 2025, city permit filings tied to the owners' company, Senegal NOLA LLC, pointed to plans for the Leonidas Street building, and Dakar had recently been ranked No. 6 on the inaugural North America's 50 Best Restaurants list.
Dr. Jones is the incoming move. Chefs David Rouse and Billy Jones opened in early 2025 in a strip-mall storefront in Metairie. Accounts of its size run from about 25 seats to 32, with an open kitchen and a BYOB model. The relocation was announced in August, and Axios New Orleans listed it in its September 16 roundup as an upscale bistro coming to the former Wonderland and Sea address. Reporting indicates the concept may not keep the Dr. Jones name, and the opening is expected this fall. Hoodline notes that the new location's opening date and whether the restaurant will keep its BYOB format are unresolved.
The original Wonderland and Sea is listed as closed. The 4842 Tchoupitoulas address goes from one restaurant to another kitchen with a following of its own, rather than to a different kind of business.
The Coffee Corner Did This First
The same logic played out at 900 Jefferson Avenue, at the corner of Magazine Street. Community Coffee's CC's Coffee House opened there in 1995 in a former pharmacy space and closed in 2019. The corner sat without a coffee shop for more than five years. Congregation Coffee Roasters opened there on July 24, 2025, in the Victorian building's ground floor. It is the company's second cafe after Algiers Point, and its roaster works from 1746 Tchoupitoulas Street. Owner Patrick Brennan said the team added window details to make them look original to the building and found the old wood floor under tile. The site now lists seven-day hours, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The corner had been a coffee corner, then it was a coffee corner again. That gap is a useful reference for the restaurant addresses above. Upperline closed during the pandemic and reopens as a restaurant this fall. Uptown addresses do not seem to lose their trades even when the rooms stay dark for years.
Freret Runs at a Different Scale
Freret Street sits at the other end of the scale. Cafe Conmigo, a Cuban-inspired cafe just off Freret that opened in early 2026, has a nine-seat counter bar, a standing bar and a stretch of outdoor seating. Louisiana Cookin' featured it in its September/October 2026 issue. Axios New Orleans reports that Thai'd Up has a second location in the works on Freret Street. New Orleans Mom's guide names Dolfy's, from chef Adolfo Garcia Jr., as the strip's buzziest recent opening, with a Basque-meets-Gulf-Coast menu of pintxos, dry-aged tuna and Basque cheesecake. The same guide lists Dat Dog as under renovation until fall 2026, and counts more than 30 restaurants, bars and coffee shops along the street.
Against a 100-seat Upperline, a nine-seat counter shows how wide the range is. Uptown's dining map holds both, and a kitchen can move from one end of it toward the other.
The Next Six Weeks on the Calendar
- Saturday, October 31: Freret Street Festival, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., six blocks from Napoleon to Valmont, with more than 200 local artists and chefs, 46 brick-and-mortar businesses, three stages and 20 bands. The festival's own site and the NewOrleans.com calendar both list the date. The market's page still describes the festival as a late-March event, and the 2025 festival was postponed to November 1 for severe weather, so confirm the date at freretstreetfestival.org before planning around it.
- Sunday, November 8: Oak Street Po' Boy Festival, according to the NewOrleans.com year-at-a-glance calendar.
What to Check Before You Book
Daughter's has no announced opening date, so a reservation link may not exist yet. Dr. Jones may reopen under a different name, which matters when searching for it. Dakar NOLA releases reservations two weeks at a time and asks guests to enter 937 Leonidas Street, not the restaurant's name, into ride-share apps. The details on the Tchoupitoulas and Upperline openings come from reporting done before either kitchen has opened, so they can shift once doors do.
If you own near Upperline Street, the Freret corridor or Magazine and Jefferson and wonder how a new address next door figures into what your home is worth today, Wurth Real Estate Services offers a free home valuation grounded in Uptown's block-by-block detail.
