The vibe couldn’t be more different today. At Peaches, everyone is welcome, and you will know this as soon as you step in and are greeted, most likely, by Shirani or Lee themselves. On Friday evenings, the store hosts a showcase for local musicians, rappers, and comedians on a stage in the rear of the shop. What started as a summer event for people to pre-game before going to Tipitina’s down the street has become a year-round happy hour with free beer and pizza. It’s very community minded.“Our store right now is built around that stage in the back,” Lee says. “Where is the kid from the Thirteenth Ward gonna get his first show? Talent shows aren’t what they used to be. Our mission is to bring people together. So our events are a mix of cultures and mediums. Since the store is so big, you can have this mini-festival environment.” As Lee explains, New Orleans is a relationship town. And Peaches was built on relationships. “Mom is so beloved because she just gives it all,” Lee says. “We have been out so many times, and people come up to her and cry and hold her and say they were young and broke and sad, and you gave me a hug after school. I’ve seen it a thousand times.”
came in and boxed up the entire reggae collection.” It took Peaches eighteen months to get back on their feet. With no money coming in, Shirani had to decide between rebuilding her home or opening a new shop. She sold her house and used the money to move into a former Tower Records space in the French Quarter. “We were the only mom-and-pop nationwide to go into a big-box store. Period,” Lee explains.“The Tower store had a real place in people’s hearts in New Orleans as well.We were very blessed with repeat business but it was hard for our [old] local customers to get down there.” In 2015, the Reas moved into a 15,000-square-foot former Woolworth’s department store at 4318 Magazine Street, which made Peaches one of the largest record shops in the Southern U.S., and ultimately brought them closer to the community that made the store what it is. “The community here is amazing,” Lee says of this newest location. “First of all, we are nestled between five schools. Parents come in before school gets out, bring the kids in after.We now have a whole kids section. It’s been crazy to get back into the neighborhood, and see the same guys every day. ” The building itself is teeming with history. It still has the scars of the Jim Crow era, including a luncheonette counter that was built in 1949, and totally segregated:Whites in one section, Blacks in another.
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