The Bridge Is Out on the Tammany Trace. Both Ends Got a New Restaurant Anyway.

You come around the bend past Gordon Avenue expecting the usual straight shot toward Abita Springs, and instead there's a barricade and a chain-link fence where the trail crosses the Abita River. A few riders turn around. A few dismount and peer over the fence at the construction crew working on what used to be a pedestrian bridge. Nobody seems surprised. This closure has been up since spring.

St. Tammany Parish government confirmed construction began on March 30 to replace the Tammany Trace bridge over the Abita River, and the section between Gordon Avenue and the Abita Springs Trailhead has been closed to all trail users since. The parish's own page on the Tammany Trace says the work is expected to wrap by the end of 2026, which means anyone who rides or walks the Trace regularly has spent an entire spring, summer, and now fall working around a gap in the middle of a 31-mile trail that normally runs unbroken from Covington through Abita Springs, Mandeville, Lacombe, and into Slidell.

What's Actually Closed

The Trace was built on an old Illinois Central Railroad corridor, and its geography matters here. Covington sits at the west end. Abita Springs comes next, home to the brewery and brew pub that most casual riders treat as the trail's natural turnaround point. Mandeville follows after that, then Lacombe, then Slidell. A closure planted between Gordon Avenue and the Abita Springs Trailhead doesn't just knock out one bridge. It sits almost exactly at the hinge between the Covington side of the Trace and everything east of it, which means the two halves of the trail are, for practical purposes, operating as two separate trails right now.

The parish has been direct about the timeline:

Construction will begin on March 30 and is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.

That's not a weekend detour. It's most of a calendar year where a Covington Trailhead ride dead-ends before Abita Springs, and a Mandeville Trailhead ride dead-ends before it can reach Abita Springs from the other direction. Anyone doing the full Covington-to-Mandeville stretch in one go has had to find another way across, or accept that this is the year for shorter loops instead of the long haul.

The Mandeville End Built Its Own Reason to Stop

The timing is coincidental, but it's hard to miss. While the middle of the Trace has sat closed, the Mandeville Trailhead picked up a genuine anchor.

Carson's Table opened at 690 Lafitte St. in late May, right at the foot of the Mandeville Trailhead, with chef Carson Wandell running the kitchen after more than two decades leading other people's restaurants. The restaurant's own site describes an entirely scratch kitchen, hand-cut steaks butchered in house, and two distinct dining experiences stacked on top of each other: a relaxed, woodsy room downstairs and a more intimate upstairs space for wine dinners and a curated list built by an in-house sommelier. It's the kind of spot that turns a trailhead stop into an actual destination rather than a place to refill a water bottle.

A few blocks away, Mandeville Seafood Market & Eatery just finished its own move. The 30-year-old market and restaurant relocated into a bigger building on LA-59, directly across the street from its old spot, giving the business roughly double the square footage along with a dedicated room built for boiling seafood in heavy pots and a lot more parking, according to Hoodline's coverage of the move published September 18. Becky and Jerry Caillouet took the business over in 2008 and expanded it into a full restaurant, moved once already in 2012 to keep up with demand, and have now moved a third time. Early reviews describe a kitchen still finding its footing in the new space, which tracks for any operation this size settling into a much larger footprint after 30 years in a smaller one.

Old Mandeville has added a few more reasons to linger too. Noir Bistrot brought French-inspired plates to an intimate room in town, and Jack's Bistro opened as a cozy, European-leaning cafe built around sandwiches, soups, and salads. Mandeville Creamery, a new ice cream shop with a bright purple storefront, rounds out the stretch for anyone finishing a ride with a kid in tow.

Covington's Trailhead Got Busier at the Same Time

The Covington Trailhead was never short on character to begin with. It's built to resemble an old railroad depot, complete with a covered platform, a clock tower, a bandstand, and a small visitor center with an exhibit hall and movie theater, sitting at the corner of New Hampshire and East Lockwood streets. That's been the setup for years. What's changed is what's opened around it.

Downtown Covington has picked up several new tables in the same stretch of months. The Hampshire brought a more upscale dinner option to downtown Covington, described by local coverage as suited to a date night or a celebration. Feliciana opened on Gibson Street with French-inspired cooking, and Lumora arrived with creative cocktails and a menu that's drawn attention from Northshore diners looking for something new, per New Orleans Mom's rundown of the area's recent openings. Ox & The Bee opened as an organic coffee shop with pastries, a smoothie bar, and gluten-free options, giving the trailhead a proper coffee stop that wasn't really there before.

The Covington Trailhead has also kept its older rhythms running underneath all of this. The Covington Farmers Market still sets up every Wednesday at the trailhead, and the city's Final Friday Block Party still closes down Columbia Street on the last Friday of the month from March through October, with live music, food, and a rotating lineup of classic cars, according to the City of Covington's own events page.

This Weekend, Both Ends Have Somewhere to Be

The split trail has an odd side effect this particular weekend. On Friday, September 25, Covington's Final Friday Block Party takes over Columbia Street starting at 6:00 p.m. On the same Friday, running into Saturday, Mandeville's Festival of the Lake is happening at Our Lady of the Lake, according to event listings for the weekend. Two towns, two separate gatherings, on the same two nights, on opposite ends of a trail that currently can't get you from one to the other without a car.

If you wanted to build a Saturday around just one end of the Trace right now, it doesn't take much:

1. Start at whichever trailhead is closer to home. Covington if you want the clock tower and the bandstand, Mandeville if you want the Cultural Interpretive Center and a shorter ride to the lakefront.
2. Ride or walk out a few miles and back, since the through-route past Abita Springs isn't an option until the bridge work finishes.
3. Finish at whichever new spot fits the mood. Coffee and a pastry at Ox & The Bee if it's morning. A full seafood boil at Mandeville Seafood's new dining room, or a wine dinner upstairs at Carson's Table, if it's evening.

Neither loop needs the other half of the Trace to feel complete this year. That's the part worth noticing. The trail's middle, the Abita Springs stretch that used to be the reason to keep pedaling, is closed through the rest of 2026, and both ends built out enough on their own that plenty of regulars aren't waiting for the bridge to reopen before they call it a good ride.

When the bridge over the Abita River does reopen, Covington and Mandeville will be one trail again instead of two. Until then, each end is doing fine on its own.

If you're already riding these loops and want more of what's changing near both trailheads before it shows up anywhere else, Burk Brokerage Real Estate keeps an eye on the Northshore too. Send us what you find on your next ride.