New Orleans Wakes Up To A Surprise As Sucre, The Upscale Dessert Company, Shuts Down

Sure, the confectionery employer with an eye-fixed-fascinating series of dessert boutiques changed into considered one in all New Orleans’ post-Katrina achievement testimonies.

Founded in 2006, Sucre presented resourceful pastries, exciting gelato flavors and sweets, and a unique King Cake with a shimmering glaze that changed into regularly featured on countrywide tv. Its three shops, on Magazine Street in the Garden District, inside the French Quarter, and within the upscale Lakeview neighborhood, seemed like French patisseries, embellished in a beautiful light. They had been accumulating locations for all people from any background who cherished goodies.

So on Monday, the Crescent City became surprised to listen that Sucre had close down. A observe on its internet site read:
“To Sucre fans and supporters, “It is with deep sadness that we ought to announce the remaining of SUCRE as of Monday, June 17, 2019. Throughout the years, we have savored every one of you. Your smiles and patronage were priceless. Thank you for your commercial enterprise and your help. Know that the Sucre’ Family holds you, dear. Stay Sweet! “Please Note: Sucre will work diligently to go back a fee for any order that has been located on our internet site within the last 72 hours. These orders will not be processed, and all price ranges will be returned to the customer. We thank each of you yet again.”

Sucre’s selection to shut came nearly a year after the confectionery agency changed into inside the news for a sexual harassment scandal regarding its original chef, Tariq Hanna. Hanna resigned from Sucre in August. And in December, the New Orleans Times-Picayune suggested that several girl employees had made sexual harassment complaints approximately Hanna, who became one of the highest-profile figures in the metropolis’s food world. The allegations brought to mind the 2017 sexual harassment scandal involving John Besh, some other famous New Orleans eating place figure who has severed his ties together with his enterprise and his foundation.

Besh had now not been seen tons in New Orleans given that then until he joined different chefs closing week to attend a memorial service for Leah Chase, New Orleans’ liked restaurant owner and civil rights suggest. In Sucre’s case, the allegations in opposition to Hanna got here after the dessert organization had constructed a countrywide mail-order business, boosted by its King Cake. It supplied grocery shops along with Whole Foods, which stocked its candy bars in its test-out lanes, in addition to its nearby operations. Its lineup featured French-style macarons in seasonal flavors and blackberry lemon, watermelon, and lavender honey, in addition to unique chocolate bars, inclusive of dark chocolate with rose petals and sweet field candies Orleans-style flavors.