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Buy your Mardi Gras supplies at the ‘Barnum and Bailey’ hardware stores
By Tom Adkinson
January 5, 2024
Don Tubbs of Tubbs Hardware has become one of the go-to guys in Shreveport/Bossier City for all things Mardi Gras. Image by Tom Adkinson
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BOSSIER CITY, La. – It makes no sense that a hardware store is a major supplier of Mardi Gras beads and king cakes until you learn that the hardware store in question is in a state that takes Mardi Gras very, very seriously and where plenty of things don’t necessarily make sense.
After all, Louisiana offers drive-through daiquiri emporiums and seems to believe more in letting the good times roll than logic, anyway.
Don Tubbs, owner of Tubbs Hardware, never imagined he’d become a major purveyor of Mardi Gas trinkets and baked goods when fate gave him the opportunity to buy the store that now bears his name in 1979. He was 19 years old.
Something he learned quickly is the seasonality of the hardware business.
“In January and February and in November and December, you starve in the hardware business,” he said, smiling now that he has turned both slow periods into all-hands-on-deck sales seasons.
November and December are for selling Cajun Christmas merchandise in addition to the expected grills, outdoor furniture and hunting blinds, and January and February are crazy with Mardi Gras business.
A sampler king cake doesn’t last long at Tubbs Hardware, which can sell 1,200 of the sugary confections a week. Image by Tom Adkinson
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“I’m selling 1,200 king cakes a week . . . out of a hardware store,” he exclaimed, perhaps a bit amused by it all himself, especially since the cakes are of his making.
(For the uninitiated, a king cake is a wreath-shaped pastry traditionally made of brioche and boldly decorated with gold, green and purple sugars, the colors of Mardi Gras. They can have fruit or cream cheese fillings, and they traditionally have a tiny plastic baby Jesus baked inside. Whoever gets the slice containing the baby Jesus buys the next year’s king cake.)
It was a Bossier City Mardi Gras parade that inspired Tubbs’s lines of non-hardware merchandise. The parade route went right in front of his store, and significant numbers of people congregated there. Instead of seeing access problems to his store, Tobbs saw a ready market for almost anything related to Mardi Gras.
His own recipe for Tubbs’s Extreme King Cake was a hit. The sugary treats really are tasty, even if they do come from a hardware store. As the store’s website says, “a Tubbs original recipe king cake feeds 20-24 people or 10-12 Cajuns.”
In Mardi Gras-crazy Louisiana, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a hardware store deals in much more than traditional hardware items. Image by Tom Adkinson
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Locals know Tubbs Hardware for its year-round mainstay merchandise, but non-hardware visitors – of which there are many – often are surprised at the displays.
Mardi Gras beads, string trimmers and leaf blowers are merchandizing neighbors at Tubbs Hardware. Image by Tom Adkinson
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Racks and racks of Mardi Gras beads ($4.49 a strand or $3.49 a strand if you buy 120 or more) are next to a wall of Shindawa leaf blowers and string trimmers, while colorful Mardi Gras serving platters and decorator items are next to a display of king cakes and King Cake Soda, a sideline item from the famous Abita brewery. Garden tools, fertilizers, sprinklers and sprayers are nearby.
“My competitors call me the Barnum and Bailey of hardware stores,” Tubbs said.
That’s a Mardi Gras crown he is happy to wear.
(FYI, Mardi Gras 2024 is on February 13.)
An alligator named Tubby is the mascot of Tubbs Hardware, which happily sells Cajun gifts, Mardi Gras beads, power tools and fertilizer. Image by Tom Adkinson
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Trip-planning resources: VisitShreveportBossier.com and TubbsHardware.com
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