BOWLING GREEN, Ky.–The early spring afternoon in downtown Bowling Green dictates a stroll through Fountain Square Park. Daffodils and tulips are blooming between the Dogwood trees. Workmen are sprucing up the old fountain. Children are smiling at the glimpse of summer.

A new beginning is the air.

Greg and Theresa Shea know all about fresh starts.

In May, 2011 they left New Orleans, La. to open Tea Bayou, a New Orleans cafe and tea bar at 906 State in Bowling Green. Tea Bayou is on the ground floor of the historic brick Settle Building, constructed in 1890. Greg is a chef who was born and raised in New Orleans. Theresa is a native of Ottumwa, Ia. who had lived in New Orleans most of her life.

Tea Bayou serves more than 50 teas and organic teas along with beignets, bourbon bread pudding, shrimp and grits, catfish marigny (on jambalya, topped with crawfish etoufee and eight different po’ boys including the cochon (pulled pork, ham, bacon and provo cheese). Their timing is fit to a t.

The Tea Association of the USA has reported that retail sales of tea have jumped from just under $2 billion in 1990 to nearly $11 billion in 2014, according to a May 6, 2015 New York Times story on tea culture.

Welcome to the percolating North Coast of New Orleans.

“We stayed after Katrina, went through that mess and I ended up developing very bad allergies,” Theresa Shea says id after lunch hour rush. “It became bad for me to stay. Your lungs itch you can’t get away from it. Then after the BP Oil Spill (April, 2010), we could smell that in New Orleans. Things got worse. We looked around and planned retirement.”

Shea has a sister who lives in Bowling Green.

They visited the third most populous city in Kentucky (61,000 after Louisville and Lexington) on Thanksgiving, 2010. The Sheas liked Bowling Green so much they considered buying retirement property in the city about an hour north of Nashville. Tn. Shea, 54, checks out the cafe, smiles and says, “By the way, this is what retirement property looks like.”

The Sheas; New Orleans, new start.

The Sheas found downtown real estate so affordable they bought the building before having a business plan. “This was the only one on the square that was for sale at the time,” Shea explains. “There were a lot of lawyer’s offices. There were no eateries or fine shopping on this side (of the square.) Downstairs had to be completely gutted. It laid vacant for a while.”

Tea Bayou had never been a restaurant. The ground floor had been a jewelry store for most of the 20th Century. The upstairs once was a luxury hotel. Shea reflects, “We feel grateful to find a building that was in such good repair. Bowling Green allowed us to finance this building with both of us moving here with no real jobs. It only cost us $30,000 and we did a lot of work ourselves.”

Shea reclaimed more than a dozen mid-century school chairs and repainted them in bright spring colors. “I got them from the basement of a consignment shop right around the corner,” she says. “Bowling Green is the consignment capital of Kentucky. There are more consignment shops up and down Broadway. They specialize. Some are fine furniture, some are just clothing. We outfitted the entire shop from things we bought from old barns or consignment shops. We put it together in a look that we like. The chandelier is the only thing we purchased from a catalog.”

A cafe bench came out of a Kentucky barn. The beautiful new Amish pine floor was imported from nearby Caneyville, Ky. “Greg drove to pick up the wood and the owner’s wife came out with a cup of hot coffee and a homemade cinnamon roll,” she says. “We kept the costs down. Most of the furniture was made by a furniture maker in Scottsville, Ky., which is 30 minutes south of here.”

A gold Sputnik-era clock on the wall was salvaged from a nearby VSA (state organization on arts and disability) that closed due to lack of  funding. Tea Bayou sells VSA artwork on walls and 100 per cent of proceeds go back to VSA. Tea Bayou shows more than 10 artists at a time in the store and more than 50 pieces adorn the walls.

Shea studied art at the University of Iowa and obtained a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with a minor in business a the University of Wisconsin (La Crosse.) She moved to New Orleans right out of college and found a job at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA).

Shea is still a graphic designer and the New Orelans Jazz & Heritage Festival is one of her clients. She designs the festival’s annual posters and souvenir shirts. The Sheas occasionally return to New Orleans to visit family.

The Sheas lived in the Lakeview area of New Orleans, which was hit hard by Katrina, the near suburban Metarie and finally Kenner. Greg was a chef at Tony Angello’s in Lakeview and later with the Loews hotel chain.

 “And this year will be 10 years since Katrina,” she says with a lost sigh. “That is so hard to believe.”

Bowling Green is a thriving community known for the National Corvette Museum /GM Corvette Assembly Plant and a Fruit of the Loom plant. Bowling Green is the home of Western Kentucky University, where former Chicago Bull Clem Haskins played in 1972.

Film director John Carpenter is from Bowling Green as was Duncan Hines (1880-1959), the original road foodie. Hines maintained a test kitchen in Bowling Green. The kitchen has been preserved. It is in the Hardy and Sons Funeral Home on Route 31 W., the original Dixie Highway. Hines lived in the ranch house from 1940 until his death in 1959 when the Hardy family purchased the property. They kept the kitchen with original red and yellow checkered wallpaper and it can be seen by appointment only. During a 2007 visit to the kitchen/funeral home we quietly walked through a visitation.

“Duncan Hines’ great grandson lives here and works at the Hilton as sales director,” Shea reports. “Duncan is a good friend of ours and what is even odder is that he was born in Lakeview, New Orleans. We found an ex-pat New Orleans thing going on here and I think it has something to do with riverboats. His father was in riverboats.” The Green River in Bowling Green is a tribiutary of the Ohio River.

The young Duncan Hines was looking for a King Cake during Mardi Gras season. “We were advertising it and he called, thinking, ‘These people probably aren’t even from New Orleans’,” she says. “He ordered it and once he had it he was all over it. He ordered like 200. He’s in here all the time. We even have a pizza named after him.”

Shea glances out the window to Barbara Stewart Interiors on the other side of the square. She whispers, “There’s a lady there in her 90s and she still comes to work. She went to a party where the woman who played Betty Crocker was at a party in town. Betty Crocker got a little loaded and Duncan Hines was also at the party so she has this whole story about Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines in Bowling Green.”

And there’s more.

Chuck Barris of “Gong Show” and “Dating Game” fame lives five blocks from Tea Bayou. Barris, 85, also wrote the pop hit “Palasides Park”  “His wife (a Bowling Green native) comes in often,” Shea said. “He’s out of town quite a bit.”

Chuck Barris

I ask for some high energy tea for the drive back to Chicago.

I get matcha tea, which is high in antioxidants. The leaves are processed as green tea, where they are steamed, dried and ground into a fine green powder. “The Japanese found they could cut high quality green tea with roasted rice to extend the tea,” Shea says. “Kind of like how New Orleanians use chicory to cut coffee. The result in both cases created a unique, regional blend. It’s like getting the benefit of up to 10 times a normally brewed cup of green tea. It provides vitamin A, B1, B2, C, E and minerals.”

Tea Bayou teas are available online at the store’s website.

POSTSCRIPT: In 2008 I got a Christmas card from the Kentucky Museum at Western Kentucky Museum, who curated a Duncan Hines exhibit. The card contained this toast from Mr. Hines:

“Well, if the oysters had been as cold as the soup, if the soup had been as warm as the wine, if the wine had been as old as the chicken, if the chicken had breasts like the maid, and if the maid had been as willing as the hostess, it would have been a wonderful evening.”

Enjoy every sandwich.