A Snoball Window Closes and Byblos Opens on Harrison Avenue's 900 Block

"NOLA SNOW IS STILL BALLING! Just not on Harrison Avenue." That is how the family behind NOLA Snow Snoballs put it in their farewell message, as WWL reported. The walk-up window at 908 Harrison Avenue served its last snoball on September 25, 2026.

A few doors away, at 900 Harrison, Byblos opened its fourth location in August. Within about two months, the 900 block gained a restaurant whose partners say they want to match the longevity of the space's best-known tenant, then lost its longest-running habit.

What 908 Harrison held since 1955

The stand's own location page says the 908 Harrison window has served snoballs since 1955, to "generations of Lakeview families." That makes it about 71 years at a single address, on a corridor where restaurants come and go.

Its history ties into the city's wider snoball trade. WWL reported that the current owners' grandfather, Rudy Giarrusso, started a snoball supply company after retiring from the New Orleans Police Department. The company sold flavors, cones and cups to stands and small food businesses across New Orleans, and it also sold K&B's Original Nectar. A man the family called "Uncle Frank" Catalanatto was one of its first customers. The family told WWL, "We served ALL of the snoball stands and mom-and-pop food stands around town."

After Hurricane Katrina, Rudy, Mimi and Kelsey Brown took over the Harrison Avenue stand. They told the station, "I made a promise to myself and Frank Jr. that our family legacies would live on through that window." The farewell on the business's website describes visitors who moved away, came back, and said "it tastes just like I remember."

A stand like that lasts through repetition, with the same window, the same flavors and the same summer routine year after year. Repetition is also what a new restaurant on the same block has to build from scratch.

Next door, a room on its third tenant

At 900 Harrison, the dining room has turned over more often. Here is the sequence, as Gambit reported it:

1. Mondo, Susan Spicer's restaurant, ran in the space for 10 years.
2. Boil & Barrel, a boiled seafood concept from the Byblos partners, ran for nine months.
3. Byblos opened in August 2026.

The partners behind the third tenant say plainly which of those runs they want to match. Gambit reported that they "hope Byblos will mirror the longevity of Mondo." Those partners are Tarek Tay, Gaby Saliba and Hicham Khodr. Tay co-founded the first Byblos 32 years ago, and the other locations are in Old Metairie, on Veterans Memorial Boulevard and in Elmwood. The restaurant takes its name from Saliba's home village.

Tay described the neighborhood's reception to Gambit this way:

"We have never ever received this amazing of a welcome to a neighborhood as we have here. When we opened in Elmwood, people were happy. But here, every day I have so many people thanking us for coming to the neighborhood."

Mondo's 10 years in the room is the benchmark the partners chose for themselves.

What Byblos is putting on the table

The menu is built for repeat visits. Tay told Gambit he wants "the kind of food that doesn't compromise taste, that you can eat a few times a week." That is the same kind of loyalty that kept a snoball window open for seven decades, applied to a sit-down room.

Gambit describes a large, airy dining room with a bar and a domed pizza oven. The oven has long been part of the space, and Byblos now uses it to bake pita and flatbreads and to roast seafood and meats. Dishes named in the local coverage:

• Hummus. Tay's secret, per Gambit: "The secret is tahini. Most people don't put enough in."
• Fried cauliflower accented with sumac, plus baba ghanoush and spanakopita.
• Smoked trout dip with fried pita wedges, garlicky fried Brussels sprouts and bacon-wrapped shrimp.
• Flatbreads topped with mushrooms and roasted garlic, or margherita-style with mozzarella and red sauce.
• Feta cheese fingers with cream cheese and Jack cheese, finished with pepper jelly.

NOLA.com's Where NOLA Eats review added two more dishes. One is drunken halloumi, planks of the cheese doused in ouzo, grilled, and layered over tomatoes. The other is a "chocolate cookie" dessert that the reviewer called a skillet-sized double chocolate brownie under a scoop of ice cream.

That review listed hours as Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., and until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, with "expanded hours to come." Gambit reported a happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m. every day the restaurant is open. Since the hours were always meant to grow, check the Byblos website before planning a Monday or Tuesday dinner.

Where the snoballs went

Leaving 908 Harrison did not end NOLA Snow. The Browns are now focusing on mobile service and outside catering, which the business has done since the 1980s. According to WWL, their snoball catering cart can serve homes, workplaces, restaurants, schools and other locations. Event bookings go through nolasnow.com, and updates on where the cart will be appear on the business's Instagram account, @nolasnowsnoballs.

For a Lakeview household, the habit now takes some planning. The snoball you used to walk up and order on an August afternoon is now something you book for a birthday party or a block gathering.

Axios New Orleans included the closure in its September 16 roundup of openings and closings across the city. In a citywide list, it was one item among many. On the 900 block, it ended the oldest routine on the street.

Down the avenue at 762

The same pattern of a new tenant in an established space runs a few blocks east. 762 Coffee + Cocktails took the former Nola Beans space at 762 Harrison Avenue. WhatNow New Orleans reported in February that it was aiming for an early-to-mid-March opening as an all-day café and bar serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Its menu is split into breakfast and lunch-and-dinner, with French toast at $14 and avocado toast at $12. It is a coffee stop by day and a cocktail spot at night, which gives one storefront two chances a day to become part of someone's routine.

The next time Harrison fills up

The avenue's next big gathering doesn't depend on any storefront. The Lakeview Civic Improvement Association lists the Lakeview Veterans Day Parade on Harrison Avenue for Saturday, November 7, 2026, from 11 a.m. to noon. The listing doesn't give a route, so the LCIA page is the place to check for updates as the date gets closer. After the parade, Byblos's posted Saturday hours run from 11 a.m. If those hours hold, lunch at 900 Harrison falls right after the last unit passes.

Next on the calendar is December. Lights on the Lake is set for December 12, 2026, at the New Canal Lighthouse, 8001 Lakeshore Drive, with a view of the West End Boat Parade.

If you own a home near Harrison Avenue and want to talk through how changes on the corridor, like the change at 908 Harrison, might matter for your own plans, I'm glad to have that conversation quietly and on your schedule. Vince Liuzza follows these blocks closely. EMAIL VINCE DIRECTLY.