Southern Food and Beverage Museum

Come to this charming museum along Central City's Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard and find a cavernous 16,000-square-foot space achieving an ambitious mission. The museum is home to an exhibition kitchen in the rear, a fab gift shop for foodies up front, and a series of central exhibits called Gallery of the Southern States of Taste. Here you can see a somewhat higgledy-piggledy series of displays dedicated to the food culture of 15 Southern states and the District of Columbia. There's also a newly added outdoor event space called the Gumbo Garden. Formerly an old Dryades Street Market that dates to 1849, the building's terrazzo floors still bear the dividing marks of the original vendors' stalls. The demonstration kitchen in the rear of the building sits where the fish market used to be.