The week Hot Stuff told Uptown it was leaving Maple Street, it ran out of food. Owner Nate Barfield told the Tulane Hullabaloo that business picked up sharply after the announcement, and earlier that week the restaurant closed early because the kitchen had nothing left to serve. The 7507 Maple St. location is expected to close sometime in October. The restaurant is moving to Decatur Street, and no opening date has been announced for the new spot.
Barfield's reason for leaving is the most revealing fact about Maple Street this fall. He said the strip didn't get enough foot traffic in the slow summer months to keep the restaurant going. In those same months, three long-running Maple Street businesses changed hands and either reopened or announced plans to. A fourth came back to the block where it started in 1978. A fifth took over an empty corner and kept its predecessor's best-known dish. The concept leaving the street is the youngest one on it. The businesses arriving or returning all carry names Maple Street already knew.
The 7500 to 7700 blocks, address by address
Here is where things stand in the stretch between Carrollton Avenue and Broadway as of the first week of October 2026.
- 7507 Maple St., Hot Stuff. This is the Southern meat-and-three that Barfield started in 2024 with Mason Hereford, who founded Turkey and the Wolf. It's expected to close here in October before moving to Decatur Street.
- 7537 Maple St., Biscuits & Buns. The second location of the Mid-City breakfast spot opened in September in the old Burger Nerds building. Burger Nerds closed in August.
- 7600 Maple St., TJ Quills. The bar first opened in 1962. It reopened in August under new ownership after being closed for a year.
- 7623 Maple St., Maple Street Cafe. It's still listed at this address and open seven days a week.
- 7638 Maple St., French Truck Coffee. It has been in the former Maple Street Patisserie space since May 2025.
- 7700 Maple St., PJ's Coffee. It's opening in the building Starbucks left in September 2025, on the same block as the first PJ's at 7713 Maple.
- 7724 Maple St., Green Olives Cafe. It has a new owner as of July and announced a September reopening after being closed for nearly three months.
Bruno's Tavern belongs on this list too. It reopened under new owners on Aug. 10.
That's seven addresses and one bar, and none of them is closing for good. The only departure, Hot Stuff, is moving downtown.
New owners behind familiar signs
Look at what came back this summer. Every business that reopened kept its name, and most kept the role it already played on the street.
TJ Quills is the oldest example. The bar has been part of Uptown nightlife since 1962. It closed quietly in the summer of 2025 and came back in August 2026 with an owner who asked the Hullabaloo not to print their name. The new owner rebuilt more than the menu, adding an outdoor patio, a draft beer system, 14 TVs and new interior lighting. TJ Quills is now open daily from 5:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. The mechanical bull, once a Wednesday night staple, is still undecided. The owner said its return is "not out of the question."
Green Olives Cafe changed hands more quietly. Yusuf Mohammad took over the Mediterranean restaurant at 7724 Maple in July and started renovating right away. He's a first-time restaurant owner with two semesters left at Delgado's culinary school. The planned menu includes ribeye steaks, protein bowls, redfish, and quinoa with sautéed chickpeas, seasoned with spices he imports from Jordan. The renovation is supposed to add an indoor waterfall to the dining room, along with new patio seating. Once it reopens, the restaurant plans to be open every day from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Until then, it's doing takeout and catering. The September 23 announcement was the latest report we found, so check before you go.
PJ's is a homecoming. Phyllis Jordan opened the first PJ's Coffee & Tea Co. at 7713 Maple St. in 1978. According to WWL, that original shop eventually closed after nearly 50 years, and its owners blamed the street construction that tore up the area. The company has grown to nearly 200 locations under brothers Paul, Steven and Scott Ballard, who bought it in 2008. Now it's coming back across the street. CityBusiness reports the new shop is about 1,600 square feet, with indoor seating, an outdoor patio, and a design that mixes the current PJ's look with nods to the neighborhood where the brand started.
"Opening on the same block where the very first PJ's welcomed its guests is a true homecoming for our brand," the Ballards said in a statement.
The building PJ's is moving into tells its own story. Starbucks closed there in September 2025, so 7700 Maple sat empty for about a year until a brand with roots on this block took it. A familiar local name ended up filling a storefront a national chain had left.
Biscuits & Buns kept the Burger Nerds smash burgers
The Burger Nerds corner shows the same pattern from a different angle. The new tenant arrived with an established name and kept a piece of the old one.
Austin Levy bought Biscuits & Buns in 2022. Gary Stalle and Yvonne Collazo opened the original at 4337 Banks St. in Mid-City in 2013, and Levy spent four years building a following there before opening the second shop at 7537 Maple. Uptown may know him from music first. He's a local hip-hop artist who opened The Hut Recording Studios more than 25 years ago.
The two locations share most of a menu: peach cobbler wings, "Big Back" crawfish biscuits, and red beans and rice fried chicken burritos. Maple Street adds one thing Banks Street doesn't have. The Hullabaloo reports the smash burgers are there as a nod to Burger Nerds' run on the corner.
"That's a good feeling, and hopefully we can recreate some of that kind of energy and magic around here," Levy said of the customers he built up in Mid-City.
The room seats 40, with booths, high-tops and bar seating. Levy is also working on opening the back patio for crawfish boils, pop-ups and live music.
The summer problem Hot Stuff couldn't solve
All of this explains why the newest concept is the one leaving.
Hot Stuff had a real pedigree. Barfield was one of the first chefs at Turkey and the Wolf, and he based Hot Stuff on the Southern restaurants he grew up with in Monroeville, Alabama. It also had a strong sense of place. The dining room is full of vintage ads, framed hunting scenes and old cans repurposed as light shades, and the covered back patio hosts game and karaoke nights.
What it didn't have was two years of history on Maple Street to carry it through the months when the campuses empty out. Barfield expects the French Quarter's steadier stream of walkers and visitors to give the restaurant a more even customer base. He described the move simply.
"Everything will stay the same, just downtown."
Other Maple Street businesses have described the same seasonal pattern. A Fresco Cafe employee told WWL that the cafe depends on college students walking in to eat, and that summer and winter breaks are hard. That's one employee's account, not a traffic count. Still, it matches Barfield's explanation, and it matches the timing of this year's changes. TJ Quills and Bruno's reopened in August. Biscuits & Buns opened in September, Green Olives set a September reopening, and PJ's arrives in early October. Every one of these openings and reopenings falls between August and early October, the same stretch when the semester starts.
Names don't always survive the turnover. Maple Street Book Shop closed in 2017 after more than five decades. The pattern this year holds for the names people come to Maple Street for: the bars, the cafes and the coffee shop that started here.
Plans for the next two weeks
- Monday, Oct. 5: PJ's at 7700 Maple is advertising half-price drinks, with buy-one-get-one-free and half-price deals continuing through the week. The company hasn't confirmed an exact opening day, so plan on the week of the 5th.
- Biscuits & Buns: As printed in the Hullabaloo, the hours are Mondays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Hot Stuff: It's open on Maple until its October closing, but no last day has been announced. Recent weeks show the kitchen can sell out, so earlier is better.
- TJ Quills: Open daily from 5:30 p.m. to 2 a.m., with the new patio out front.
- Green Olives Cafe: Planned hours are 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily once the dining room reopens. Takeout and catering are available in the meantime.
Business owners on Maple Street learn the same thing about its storefronts that homeowners learn about the streets around them. A familiar name and a known history on the block carry a lot of value, and the people taking over want to keep both. If you own near Audubon Park or Tulane and want to know how this fall's changes on Maple Street affect the value of your block, Tricia King is glad to go through it with you, address by address. Let's Connect.
