K&B (Katz & Besthoff)

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Katz and Besthoff began in 1905, when pharmacists Gustave David Katz and Sydney J. Besthoff Sr. opened a drugstore at 732 Canal Street in downtown New Orleans. What began as a neighborhood pharmacy grew, store by store, into a Gulf South institution with prescriptions, cosmetics, snacks, photo finishing, liquor where permitted, and notably serious ice cream.

Purple arrived early and stayed loud. The company adopted conspicuous purple wrapping paper in the 1900s, turning an unlikely bargain into the visual code later known across New Orleans as “K&B Purple.” It was not a subtle corporate identity; it was a full-color civic weather system.

In 1947, the company consolidated executive offices and several operations at 900 Camp Street. Its executive headquarters moved to K&B Plaza at Lee Circle in 1974. As the chain reached beyond its hometown, Katz and Besthoff, Inc. changed its corporate name to K & B, Inc. in 1977, while the public-facing shorthand became simply K&B.

By the 1990s, K&B operated across six Southern states. Rite Aid purchased the chain in 1997, ending its independent retail run and removing the purple name from store façades. The Besthoff family retained corporately owned real estate, while the drugstore legend settled into local memory.

Our K&B (Katz & Besthoff) collection celebrates the corner-store giant that made errands, ice cream, and an aggressively purple sign feel like part of New Orleans civilization.