Tiana’s Palace, revealed as the dream-come-true restaurant at the end of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, actually exists. In New Orleans, African American cuisine pioneer and community builder Leah Chase—Disney’s real-life inspiration for Tiana—ran Dooky Chase’s with her family, leaving a lasting legacy that has impacted generations.
During io9’s Disney Imagineering trip with Disney Parks to celebrate Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, we were hosted by Stella Chase, honorary Imagineer on the Princess and the Frog-themed attraction, to learn more about her mother Leah’s story during a dinner at Dooky Chase’s. “Just like Tiana, it was always my mother Chef Leah Chase’s—‘Princess Tiana’s’—dream to have a restaurant,” she said. “It just so happened that her husband—before he was her husband, he had an orchestra, a band, he loved music. He played trumpet. But the war happened and at this time, his parents needed him to come into the restaurant. He never seemed to put that trumpet away, and that’s why we have the trumpet in our bar area right on the shelf: any opportunity he had to make the music in the restaurant or the play his trumpet—he did. It was that trumpet, that music that got my mother. My mother was at a function where my father’s band was playing and of course, she walked in, and she was very pretty and she caught his eye. She danced with my father, and that was the love story.”
It was a wonder to get to know more about the city through the Chase family’s imprint on history and food—a tale that, like Disney’s Tiana and Prince Naveen, started with love. Stella Chase continued: “It just so happened that his parents had a restaurant they had opened. And so she came into the restaurant business through her lover’s heart and lover’s family, and became part of the restaurant. And that fulfilled her dream. She worked in restaurants, but she had never been able to accomplish the dream of coming in and owning the restaurant. Her love for restaurants [came when] she was in high school; she used to walk through the French Qaurter, looking at all the restaurants, looking at all the fine dining. This gave her that opportunity to change [what had been] a po’ boy stand, [a] family-owned small restaurant, into what she wanted it to be: Tiana’s special place. And that’s what we have today.”
The Chase family were also very prominent figures during the civil rights movement; all over the walls, among the art, were photos of leaders, politicians, and activist writers. “Now, my family is an incredible family, just as many New Orleaneans and many of you sitting in here, you probably could tell the story of your family,” Leah Chase said. “But my family was here during the segregated time. My grandparents opened up the restaurant for African Americans who had no place to come. But they also worked for the civil rights movement in order that the doors could be opened for everyone. Until that happened, we had the opportunity to serve so many African American entertainers and so many families who were happy to come here to celebrate. Musicians Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Lena Horne—the list goes on. Writers such as James Baldwin; he had a corner at the bar where he would sit and he would do his writing. We’re proud that we served and had the Freedom Bus drivers come here, not only to strategize, but to fuel themselves with what they called good food. And one of the Freedom Fus riders not long ago told me, ‘You know, it was rough and sometimes we went to jail, but the good thing was getting a po’ boy from Dooky Chase’.”
Princess Tiana’s next chapter is greatly influenced by this real-life story. Disney Imagineering and storytellers worked closely with the Chase family over the years to imbue Tiana with Leah’s love of community. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure explores how the story of the little girl who made gumbo with her dad to share with her neighbors continues into her adulthood, where Tiana continues her act of service through food for a Mardi Gras celebration. Stella Chase motioned around to the establishment we sat in, enjoying dinner with folks from so many different backgrounds. “This was the place that they always wanted people to feel at home. And of course, as civil rights went on, integration happened. We felt good about it, we fought hard. My father went door to door getting people to register to vote. So it was a great time, a time to celebrate. But there weren’t that many Caucasians or people of other races that wanted to come to African American establishments to see ‘what we’ve been missing’,” she shared. “My parents knew that they had to make the community proud of them again, so they expanded the restaurant. My mother got the opportunity to not only dream about those fancy places and restaurants in the French Quarter, but to make her restaurant a place that everyone would feel comfortable coming in to. She always said ‘We have a good product. They will come.’”
Another detail we were given a wonderful history lesson about is how Dooky Chase was one of the first places to curate African American art. Chase explained, “African American artists were not allowed to display their art everywhere, so [my mother] said, ‘When I open and expand, your art will come on my walls.’ And so hence, we have all the art,” she said. She showed how that legacy continues, as the restaurant currently houses the first of the Tiana’s Bayou Adventure pieces Disney commissioned from artist Sharika Mahdi.
Stella Chase honored not only her mother but her grandmother, who believed in the power of love through acts of service. “We always reached out to our community. And whenever that has happened, we have really benefited from it. We did that when the banks were not too friendly to African Americans; they didn’t have bank accounts and couldn’t always cash their checks. So my grandmother, with a cigar box, would be there with money and a line of people with checks to cash. I often wondered, ‘What did you do?’ The chip wasn’t good, but they didn’t want to worry about it. These were payroll checks, and African Americans needed [somewhere] to place their check. So down at that same bar where Ray Charles used to come in, James Baldwin, and many other musicians and writers, my grandmother pays the checks for the people in the community. So we just step up. The whole thing is: see what our community needs, and provide it for them.”
Acting as her mother’s keeper and steward of the Chase legacy when it comes to working with Disney on Tiana, Stella Chase shared how Tiana has impacted her family in turn. “I think it’s a blessing that we get everyone coming here—everyone, every race, from all over the world, coming here. First of all, they tell me the history brings them here, which is a good thing. And then they say, ‘but I didn’t know the food was this good’. Every single day we get someone here [who] comes to see Tiana’s restaurant, and that is the beacon to little girls and even big men with t-shirts with Tiana on them. We’ve got people from Ecuador. We’ve gotten people from New Zealand. We’ve got people from all over the country, all over the world.”
As a visitor I quickly felt a part of the community through comfort food and the family I was honored to hear stories about. Chase thanked everyone for visiting and holding space for Leah Chase’s impact on the Disney’s Princess. “We now have Disney magic going on. Because if we have children and grown people coming here because of Tiana, they’re not coming here just because of Tiana’s restaurant and the food; it’s the value. It’s what she meant to them, it’s the fact that in spite of whatever she went through, she found a way to survive. And that’s what we have to tell each and every one that we meet: that they are important. Dream big and you can make it happen.”
It is a sort of magic that I hope gets sprinkled into all of the Tiana-themed attractions on the slate—including the restaurant set to open in New Orleans Square at Disneyland.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is set to open next year at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and Disneyland.
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