The Mother-in-Law Keeps Changing

Recently, Antoinette K-Doe‘s daughter Betty Fox announced that she was closing the Mother-in-Law Lounge. She took up the task of keeping the bar on North Claiborne Avenue open after her mother died February 24—Fat Tuesday—last year. As those who attended one of Fox’s garage sales saw, the upstairs apartment remains in disarray and damaged since Katrina, and she sleeps on the couch in the bar just as Antoinette did. Since running bars was more her mother’s calling than hers, she announced that she was calling it quits and hosting a final garage sale July 9.

Since then, the outcry over her decision to close the bar that started as a clubhouse for Ernie K-Doe and his musical contemporaries has became a monument to the K-Does prompted Fox to reconsider.

“Preserving a legacy is hard work especially fitting the shoes of the EMPEROR and EMPRESS OF THE UNIVERSE,” she wrote in a recent Facebook post. “My decision of closing your beloved MOTHER N LAW has been reversed due to all of the heart felt pleas because you guys love this landmark I have decided to give it one last try.”

Fox and the Mother-in-Law will celebrate the Fourth of July with food (barbecued chicken and red beans and rice) and music by Guitar Lightnin’ Lee.