In 2010, Central City Millworks submitted a bid for the renovation of a New Orleans restaurant at the corner of St. Charles and Napoleon Avenues, and was subsequently awarded the contract. The location had previously been the site of a Copeland’s Restaurant for many years.

Central City Millworks was tasked with taking the architect’s concept drawings and transforming them into reality while maintaining the intended design aesthetic and keeping the project within the owner’s budget. The design was inspired by a Paris bistro that the owner discovered and immediately fell in love with the ambiance. That experience resulted in a commitment to recreate that venue for New Orleanians and city visitors to enjoy. CCM duplicated the style and many of the details of the bistro from the owner’s photographs.

The name of the new restaurant is Superior Seafood, and it is owned by the same company that owns and operates Superior Grill on St. Charles Avenue near Touro Hospital. This will be their second dining location in New Orleans, and will be the more upscale of the two restaurants and specializing in Gulf seafood.

To date, Central City Millworks has completed fabrication of all of the exterior and interior millwork using African mahogany (Sapele), a very stable wood that is resistant to termites and rot. All of the exterior millwork (doors, windows, exterior trim, and raised panel walls) has been fabricated and installed on-site, and CCM is in the process of completing the interior on-site installation.

A list of the millwork that we have fabricated and installed (or in the process of installing) includes:

• Exterior single hung windows
• Exterior glass panels
• Exterior raised panels
• Side vestibule entry
• Handicap entry door and sidelights
• Entry door with curved transom
• All interior wainscoting
• Main bar (with raised panels including one curved raised panel)
• Main bar pilasters (with CNC intricately carved cameos)
• Main bar back base cabinets
• Main bar back display cabinets (with pilasters)
• Oyster bar (with raised panels including two curved raise panels)
• Oyster bar pilasters (with CNC intricately carved cameos)
• Oyster bar back
• Booth divider walls (with curved glass panels over paneled wainscot with cap rail)
• Bathroom stalls
• All interior custom wood doors with transoms.

Central City Millworks is in the final phase of a project that we have worked on for a year. Every separate item listed above has its own story, and the stories of those different components may be appended as this job nears completion.

The Port Sulphur Government Building received significant damage during hurricane Katrina in 2005, and renovations began in 2007. The architect selected for this renovation was Yeates & Yeates Architects, LLC. and the job was awarded to DBR/ DRC General Contractors. Central City Millworks, a New Orleans millworks company, was chosen as the contractor, and began production in early 2008.

After a long shop drawing process we were finally able to capture and portray the vision of the architect.  Upon approval we were ready to begin the project.  We first removed every window sash in the building.  59 windows! We brought them back to our New Orleans mill shop, stripped, repaired, patched, primed and sometimes fabricated replacements for each window.  The sashes were then upgraded to a storm rated safety plate glass, glazed in the traditional manner, and reinstalled in full working condition.

Following the window repairs, we began making new storm shutters for every opening, including some of the doors.  We ended up fabricating 64 shutters in total.  These were made to replicate the nonstandard, yet original shutters that were previously on the building.  Unfortunately there were no shutters left to use as a sample, hence the reason for the lengthy shop drawing process.  So much is the case for most of the detail work on this project.

Other missing items that we had to replicate included the front doors and an oculus.  The front doors were especially difficult because the shop drawings came directly from the blueprints from which the building was originally built.  Typically exterior doors nowadays measure 1 ¾” in thickness, but this one measures 2 1/8” thick.  In addition, the panel edges and the rails were on different planes of the stiles.  We constructed them in a very nontraditional way so much so that we can only wonder if the original door were even built exactly like those original plans. Regardless, we figured it out and were able to please two architects in the process!

The palladium transom is right above the doors in the center of the photo

The palladium transom above the doors was originally not included in the bid, but the decision was made for us to fabricate a new transom from white oak to better match the doors.  Well, we ended up not only making a new transom, but we made it to fit the original glass sizes.  This meant that we had to include all of the imperfections of the original and truly recreate it exactly like the original. Needless to say it was very fun…. and challenging.

Please enjoy the following posts and photos of our millwork job in Port Sulphur:

White Oak Paneled Lobby

Custom Cabinet Pass Through

Attic Oculus

Custom Entry Cabinet

Additional Port Sulphur Blog Posts:

Central City Millworks Completes Port Sulphur Government Building
White Oak Paneled Lobby
Custom Cabinet Pass Through
Custom Entry Cabinet

Colorful New Orleans kitchen cabinets

One can not help but notice the difference between custom cabinets made specifically to fit your home and cabinets purchased off the shelf and out of the box.

Kitchen cabinets that add warmth

Bring in your ideas and our creative staff will help you design an amazing kitchen. Cabinets that fit your room to perfection. Your cabinets will be made locally, here at the mill shop, by our state-of-the-art CNC (Computer Numerical Control with 3 axis’) router.

Kitchen cabinets in bright white