When Overpass Cleaners closes its doors later this month after nearly 70 years in business in the shadow of the Perkins Road overpass, Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel says it will leave a void.
“Not only because it did a good job dry cleaning but because it was a throwback to another era—a simpler, less sophisticated time, when you could walk into a neighborhood establishment and everybody knew your name,” Riegel writes in her latest column. “When it closes, just a handful of homegrown, family-owned businesses will remain in what is one of Baton Rouge’s most special neighborhoods.”
Riegel knows the neighborhood well, having lived there since moving to Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina.
“I immediately loved the area, with its charming pre-war cottages and proximity to the LSU lakes, even though we didn’t then have a neighborhood juice bar that cold-presses bottles of leafy greens or a café that bakes organic paleo bars,” she writes. “A lot has changed around here in those nearly 10 years, and in general it has all been positive. As service-based businesses have closed, folded, retired or relocated, upscale boutiques and trendy eateries have opened in their place, giving the neighborhood a faintly hipster/chic feel without robbing it of its authenticity and sense of place.”
Still, it is different, Riegel says, and something has been lost.
Read the full column. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
