Displacement opened new chapter for Charlotte entrepreneur 

KEN KOONTZ

Martine Clark holds Gumbo, a stuffed mascot of her restaurant Bite Your Tongue-New Orleans Cuisine in Charlotte. Clark and her family were displaced from New Orleans in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina.

In addition to destroying homes, businesses, and infrastructure in addition to leaving thousands dead and homeless, Hurricane Katrina forced tens of thousands to resettle in new places. 

Many of the displaced would never return, uprooted from their homes and familiar surroundings only to end up around strange people and deep uncertainty about their futures. Attempts failed to produce official and accurate numbers for persons, families or businesses that relocated to Mecklenburg County. 

Restauranteur Martine Clark and her family were among those who made that transition. Then married with two children ages 2 and 6 years old when Katrina hit New Orleans, the family shut down their restaurant, Bite Your Tongue, and settled down with friends in Huntersville. 

They had lived in an apartment in downtown New Orleans where flood waters weren’t so high and the impact on their home was not as severe as other Crescent City neighborhoods where single family homes took major, irreparable damage. But their restaurant was not so lucky as their customer base vanished. In Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the Clarks opened a food delivery service.

“Charlotte people were welcoming and made our transition here easy,” Clark said. “We created a new start-up delivery service, but, we also saw great potential for reviving Bite Your Tongue-New Orleans cuisine here. “We had opened in New Orleans in 2002 where there was great upside potential for success until Katrina.” 

The Clarks opened Bite Your Tongue-New Orleans Cuisine and moved eight times across the county. Now divorced with two adult children, Clark runs the restaurant on the Beatties Ford Road corridor with financial support from Historic West End Partners, a nonprofit that promotes business development and expansion. 

The new venue boasts virtually everything Cajun from alligator tail and Po’ Boy sandwiches to gumbo and other seafoods and bayou cuisines.

Clark’s children are following the family’s culinary arts tradition. Her daughter is learning skills under mother’s watchful eye and tutoring. Her son owns a Cajun-style food truck in Winston-Salem called Bayou Eats.

Comments