Mother-In-Law lounge to close

Betty Fox, the daughter of Antoinette K-Doe, announced on her Facebook page that she is closing down Ernie K-Doe's Mother-In-Law Lounge for good. The colorful bar at 1500 N. Claiborne in Treme has been difficult for Fox to maintain since Antoinette died on Mardi Gras Day, 2009. Fox was hospitalized March 1 after a car crashed into the bar, damaging the front door and leaving her "physically and emotionally tired of doing this. I'm grieving, too. I'm losing weight. I've been living upstairs with no plumbing, or electricity, and mold in the room for a year and a half."

"I know a lot of people might not understand," she said. "But my mother and K-Doe been gone, and each one of us has our own memory of them. This is just a building."

Fox plans to hold the last in a series of garage sales of K-Doe and Antoinette memorabilia as well as some of the bar's fixtures on July 10. Though she is behind in the rent and the building has suffered structural and mold damage, Fox holds out hope that the Mother-In-Law could be turned into a museum, an eventuality that seems unlikely without a serious financial intervention.