Eat & Read at Melba’s
A New Orleans Po’ Boy Shoppe Enriches Community and Literacy with Free Books and Author Visits
by Torrey Douglass
For a woman who says she never read “a proper book” until age 43, Jane Wolfe is one of the most passionate advocates of literacy you could ever hope to meet. With 43 million American adults possessing no more than a sixth grade reading level today, it’s a cause that is more than ready for some attention, and Jane is uniquely qualified to step up to the challenge.
Jane has the direct manner and buoyant spirit of a person who has lots to do and can’t wait to get started. She is both thoughtful and quick, pausing before answering my questions during our Zoom interview like she’s checking in with an internal touchstone before responding in her warm New Orleans drawl. She has the attitude of someone who knows how to face difficult circumstances and turn them around with a powerful blend of humility, humor, and hard work.
At 16, Jane married her husband, Scott Wolfe, and left high school to work in the grocery business they started together in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. With the help of a $10k loan, Wagner’s Meats opened in what would today be referred to as a food desert, but at the time was known as “an area of poverty in the city.” The store focused on providing the African American community with meat and other ingredients found in gumbo, red beans and rice, and other signature dishes beloved in the city. Scott, a consummate capitalist, grew the business into a chain of ten stores, employing more than 300 people and serving over 100,000 customers at its peak.
If Scott was the brains of the operation, Jane was its heart. Every store featured a marquee out front with a life-affirming quote to uplift and inspire passers-by, selected and meticulously proofread by Jane. (Any employee who left out necessary punctuation was expected to correct it right away.) She created a store policy whereby any child who earned at least one A on their report card received a free soft serve ice cream cone. Jane remembers how kids and their parents would visit the store with their report cards in hand, smiling with delight, to get that ice cream cone. “It was a beautiful moment of communion with the community,” she recollected. “Instead of just being a business, I began looking at capitalism in a social manner.”
Then Hurricane Katrina hit, and all ten stores and the communities they served were inundated with water. By that point, the couple had been operating their business for 30 years and retirement was on the horizon, so they decided not to reopen. Instead, Scott went into construction to help rebuild the city. Jane was tempted to attend college, but she was afraid it might be awkward to be a college student in her 40s. Her son reminded her that the age of 50 was on its way no matter how she spent the years until then, and Jane took the plunge, enrolling in Tulane for her undergraduate degree at the age of 43.
“At college I got a lot of books thrown at me, and I read them all,” said Jane. After graduating from Tulane with degrees in both history and religious studies, she attended Harvard Divinity School to study religion and social entrepreneurship. There she continued reading, drinking up knowledge, always thinking about how she could bring these new ideas to her community back home. She shared, “Every time I met an author or went to an author’s discussion I thought, ‘Everybody should have this.’”
In 2015, when Jane was in her last, overworked days of finishing her Harvard degree, Scott was ready for something new. Jane said, “Go ahead and open a little po’ boy shop.” He found the ideal location where the 7th, 8th, and upper 9th Wards come together, and Melba’s Po’ Boys was born. In addition to the 24-hour restaurant serving up Po’ Boys, Shrimp and Grits, gumbo, fried chicken, breakfast, and more, they opened a laundromat called Wash World in the same building.
A few years later in 2018, Jane’s academic advisor, Jonathan Walton, came to New Orleans with his family. A writer and religious scholar, he’d recently published his first book, The Lens Of Love: Reading the Bible in its World for Our World. Jane purchased 100 copies and organized an author event at Melba’s, giving a book away for free with each lunch purchase and providing diners the opportunity to chat with Jonathan about his book before continuing with their day. As his wife and three children helped behind the counter and he spoke with people who came from homes with few books, Jonathan looked up and said, “Jane, this is so needed—to get these books into the hands of everyday people!”
That was the spark that inspired Jane to begin Eat & Read at Melba’s, a literacy project that brings authors to the restaurant, either in person or virtually, for book signings, book giveaways, and conversations. While the books included in the program represent a variety of topics, prominent subjects include African American history and the role of race in America, religious and spiritual matters, children’s books, women in history and society, and New Orleans food, culture, and local history. Authors have included Colson Whitehead, Gregory Boyle S. J., Sister Helen Prejean, Professor Deidre Mask, Chelsea and Hillary Clinton, Michael Pollan, Sherri L. Smith, and many more.
Reflecting on the program, Jane shared, “What I’m doing right now in New Orleans—in this book desert—is fertilizing our community with ideas. It’s the reason I get up in the morning.” It is the perfect combination of social entrepreneurship, spiritual compassion, and intellectual generosity, an avenue through which Jane can share the mind-expanding excitement she experienced in college with customers who come through the restaurant every day. “I want to awaken ideas that people do not have time to seek out, to [give them a chance to] just think about them.”
For some people, the regular book events are on their radar and not to be missed. These folks usually belong to the 25,000 member email list that Jane notifies a few days before every event. She estimates about 40% of the attendees come intentionally. For the rest, a free book with lunch and the chance to speak with its author is an unexpected delight. Those unanticipated moments are Jane’s greatest joy. “When I’m at the book giveaway for an hour, people come in and the surprise of literacy hits them. It’s a beautiful moment of surprise.”
While people receive a free book with food at the author events, there’s also an ongoing offer that does just the opposite. When a customer buys a book from a large shelf stocked with works from alumni authors, they receive a free side, brownie, or daiquiri with the purchase. Some favorites sell out time and again. Chicken Soup for the Black Woman’s Soul has been reordered a number of times.
The combination of thought-provoking reading and delicious New Orleans food is a definitive success, and it’s getting attention. The program has received support from organizations like Scholastic, which donated $5,000 worth of books, and the Clinton Foundation, whose “Too Small to Fail” initiative partners with the Family Read & Play space at the laundromat, a reading nook with table, chairs, books, and art supplies where kids can hang out while their parents do laundry. On top of that, Melba’s is on Inc. 500’s list of the fastest growing companies and has been recognized as Louisiana’s fastest growing company. When we spoke, the organization had only just received its nonprofit tax id number ten days prior. Jane hopes her model of using the restaurant industry to address a societal ill can be replicated across the country.
Besides running the program, Jane teaches World Religions at a local Catholic university, a subject that is clearly close to her heart. She credits learning about religion during her years at Tulane and Harvard with returning her to her faith tradition. She went to college to understand what religion was for, and now believes one key component is that “it helps you to think of the other.” For Jane, thinking of others is reflecting in how she uses her business to share her love of books, with the ultimate goal of turning both staff and customers into lifelong learners. She still takes time to read and enjoy her favorite po’ boy—shrimp with extra mayo, ketchup, and hot sauce, “dressed” with lettuce, pickles, and tomato—but she doesn’t sit still for long. After all, there’s much to be done to address the literacy crisis in America, and she can’t wait to get back to it.
Eat & Read at Melba’s
1525 Elysian Fields Ave, New Orleans, LA
(504) 267-7765 | Melbas.com
Torrey Douglass is a web and graphic designer living in Boonville with her family. Her life’s joys include reading by the fire, cooking something delicious, and inspiring her dogs to jump into the air with uncontained canine happiness.