This month, Pho Tau Bay marks 40 years in business. Any restaurant that makes it so long has weathered a lot of change.
There were once four locations. But after Katrina, only the original Gretna restaurant reopened, and in 2015 that one closed as the property was razed to make way for a Walmart. It might’ve been the end of the line. But a year later, the family returned to one of their old locations on Tulane Avenue, right across from the old Charity Hospital.
It's now a multi-generation family business, with Karl Jr. and his wife Laura Hebert Takacs front and center.
The menu still teems with the classics - rice noodle bowls and spring rolls, banh mi sandwiches, strong French drip coffee swirling with condensed milk, and of course, the soup.
Forty years makes a whole lot of pho. And when I think about what first made me fall in love with this food, I’m stirring up memories of those early visits to Pho Tau Bay.