BATON ROUGE - A familiar market in Spanish Town is back with new owners and a fresh start. 

The former Capitol Grocery reopened in its original form at the beginning of April as Spanish Town Market and Cafe. This follows the closure of health food market Belli last year due to zoning issues and conflicts with neighbors.

New owner Horatio Isadore said he wanted to bring back the original concept of serving hot meals and coffee, as well as providing groceries and specialty meats in the building that was built in 1914.

"I remember reading about it and there were just some inconsistencies and I said man if someone could get this place and be consistent they could really do some good things," Isadore said. "It's just an opportunity for the community to really appreciate what we're trying to do here.”

It's in the heart of Spanish Town, surrounded by neighboring homes and one-way streets. One of the main headaches for previous ownership was complaints about parking availability. 

"They'll walk in, there's no parking! We understand that but there is parking for this community so it's hard sometimes for someone to intentionally come here," Isadore said.

Belli also had a run-in with neighbors, complaining about the store's plans to sell beer and wine.

"I think we can be extremely extremely successful without that," Isadore said.

Isadore said they're hoping to provide beer and cigarettes in their grocery eventually while abiding by the neighborhood's wishes.

“You can't piss off the community, you know, you can but it's just not good business. They are very territorial in a good way about what they've created and what they want," Isadore said.

But all in all, he wants the store to be loved by the community that keeps it sacred. 

"Everybody understands that the building needs to be operational, the building needs to be up, the space needs to be available for the community, so once you look at it from that perspective all of the cards started lining up and we said okay we're going to go for it," Isadore said.

Isadore said he's committed to growing the market with the neighborhood in mind — one step at a time.