The syrup for the Creamery’s take on the classic New Orleans nectar soda (a combination of vanilla and almond flavors, sometimes flavored and colored with cherry, sometimes just dyed a light pink) is made by the man who mixed it for the old drugstore chain K&B, said Bergeron. “Nectar sodas were a traditional New Orleans drink back in the 50s and 60s when soda fountains were really popular.” Though the drink has been mostly absent from the city the last 20 or so years, he says, Bergeron serves it just like the mom and pop shops used to, with the homemade nectar poured on top of a muddle (ice cream and milk), topped with soda water, a scoop of vanilla, whipped cream and a cherry. 

Pop Rouge, the strawberry cream soda that is a favorite kids flavor at the Creamery, was reimagined from Bergeron’s childhood. He drank the local soft drink until it disappeared sometime in the 70s. Bergeron tells a story about how a few months ago, a woman came into the shop and told him that her dad was the soda’s original inventor. She took some home some and he gave his approval. “I was pretty nervous but I was happy to get that endorsement,” he said. 

“We heard it was the best place in the city,” said Caitlyn O’Hara, a youth-group leader from Yorktown, VA. O’Hara and her charges were spending the week in New Orleans to help rebuild home damaged during the storm. “We’ve sampled all the crazy flavors, and can’t believe that Lavender Honey is a flavor. It’s phenomenal.” 

Alyssa Leggoe agrees. “Plain Peppermint, Cookies and Cream, Skyscraper are some of my favorites.” Leggoe lives in Moscow, but she grew up in New Orleans and came back to the city to have her first baby near her family. “I live around the corner,” she said. “It’s and easy place to walk to.” 

What the customers think is especially important to Bergeron. As many of them know, Creole Creamery was one of a handful of food service spots that was able to open quickly after Hurricane Katrina. “We were the second food service business open in the city and people remember that and are very loyal because of that,” said Bergeron. On September 28, 2005, they reopened with two flavors, Vanilla and Cookie Monster. The next day they had four, and so on. Word spread quickly, and when people grew tired of gutting their houses, they came over for a little relief, he said. “People talked about ice cream.” Due to the publicity after the storm, Bergeron says the following year was the busiest they’ve had. “We’re still very busy, but it was just gangbusters. A lot of that had to do with there was no competition.” 

Bergeron’s eight-month-old daughter recently had her first licks from an ice cream cone. Who knows what bygone flavors she might mix up with her dad one day.