After 25 years on the street that is its namesake, a classic French Quarter bookstore moves into a spacious corner location, steps from Jackson Square.

– by Christopher Louis Romaguera

– photos by Ellis Anderson

Walking into Dauphine Street Books, you experience a peculiar French Quarter vibe: you have entered a completely different world than the one left just outside the door. The fact that the shop is named after one street while it’s located on another only reinforces its feeling of otherworldliness.

The shop’s decor is Early Literary-lover. Towers of books are stacked in piles at different angles. Every surface serves as a shelf. Your walk changes to a shuffle as you move through the shop in hopes of not disturbing the system.

Characters walk in and out, sometimes bringing in as many stories as they leave with. The place gives off a rich lived-in experience. So you naturally assume – from the piles of books, their handwritten prices, and the owner overseeing it all – that this bookstore has inhabited this space for decades.

But although the business is approaching its 30th birthday, it only opened up at 818 Chartres Street less than two years ago.

Holding court in this organized chaos is proprietor Steven Lacy, who is always helpful with an answer, suggestion, or conversation – with whatever you need or are looking for. Lacy has worked as a bookseller all of his life, starting in a small bookstore in Santa Cruz in the ‘70s and learning the trade in a succession of stores for nearly two decades.

In the late ‘80s, Lacy moved towards the dream of running his own storefront. He traveled the country to find a place to make his home, to sell his books. Lacy considered Boulder, Kansas City and points between, but nowhere felt “right.”

In 1989, he found himself in New Orleans, and in the kind of story that many of us who live here are familiar with, he fell for the town. A few years later, in 1994, during a rare real estate opportunity provided by the oil bust, Lacy bought the building that would become Dauphine Street Books.

For the next 25 years, the store anchored the corner of Dauphine and Conti, with Lacy selling books and hosting formal readings and impromptu literary discussions. That all changed in 2020 when Lacy sold the building and relocated his shop to an antiques mall in Arabi (7002 St. Claude Street.)

While the new Arabi location is still thriving, Lacy always loved working in the French Quarter – which is why, in 2021, he jumped at the chance to buy a historic commercial condo on the corner of Chartres and Madison, just steps away from Jackson Square. He bought in with the expectation that he’d have to do “a lot of demo and have a concrete contractor.” Despite Hurricane Ida roaring through New Orleans in August that year, he was eventually able to finish the repairs and open up.

When I talked to Lacy in 2020 about his original location on Dauphine, he spoke about the different and sometimes “eccentric” characters that would wander in randomly or come in for readings when launching their books.  He also noted that many writers had actually lived the stories they had written in their history or “fiction” books. Book collectors offer a different kind of learning experience.

“Quite often, there would be people who collected books of a specific type,” he said.  “They would be more than willing to talk about their interests. It would be an education.”

Lacy says the maximalist style of Dauphine Street Books stems from his inability to catch up on shelving. “I’ve been very lucky finding books to buy, so I never get caught up on either pricing and shelving,” he admits. “But people seem to like it.”

I ask Lacy why he kept the name “Dauphine Street Books” now that it’s located on Chartres. He jokes, “I decided I had it for 25 years, and a lot of people remember the old shop.”

Lacy grins.

“So I’m working on the city to change the name of the street.”