Cypress by the Revenir is an offshoot of The Revenir restaurant located within the Every Man a King Distillery in downtown Shreveport. Chef owners Allison Gras and Brad Jones say the target atmosphere in Cypress by the Revenir is relaxed, funky and upbeat.

“My wife showed me a picture of a farm table in a magazine and wanted one,” Hatfield remembered. “When I got around to building her one, all of her friends that came over wanted one. So, I decided, ‘Hey, let’s just see what happens.’ About two years later, we shut down the cabinet business and started building nothing but tables.

“Jim Malsch made a bold commitment to create an entrepreneur and arts center in a building blighted for decades. He saw the promise of the building and the area.

At its zenith, the B'nai Zion Temple in downtown Shreveport served as a herald for the city's thriving Jewish community, complete with majestic Corinthian columns and detailed stonework on the facade.

“Mainly, it’s water in the bathrooms,” he said. “None of the male urinals work. The commodes work intermittently. They shut the men’s bathroom in the patrol division down because it flooded with contaminated water. The renovated gym was done around 2001 or 2002.

So, he took what he had learned in his brief career and began his own marketing and advertising company. “I put my head down and knew I had all the knowledge to help people. It was grueling at first. I worked out of a small coffee shop in Bossier City.”.

Over the past year, people have been transfixed on the change happening at 717 Crockett St. Improvements could be seen weekly during our year of Covid-19, proving that good things can happen even in really rotten years. The 1920s Sam Wiener-designed building both deserved the rehab and was lucky to get it.