Foodies Of Lafayette Podcast

One family gets one hour to leave their home during the Mexican Revolution, and decades later their name becomes shorthand for a whole generation’s first taste of Mexican food. We’re in El Paso, Texas, sitting down with the founding family behind Pancho’s Mexican Buffet to follow the true story from Chihuahua to the Second Ward, through loss, survival, and the kind of work ethic you can’t fake.

We talk about a grandmother feeding people during the Great Depression, and how those early lessons in service shaped a business that always feels like hospitality first. T...

A stuffed bread can be more than a menu item. It can be a family’s signature, a city’s comfort food, and a responsibility you wake up thinking about. We sit down with Jason Herbert of Creole Lunch House to tell the real story behind one of Lafayette, Louisiana’s most beloved local restaurants, from the first small green building to the iconic brown bag people still crave today. 

Jason walks us through how his mom, Merlene, went from the school system to restaurant owner after retirement and chose the harder path: creating something unique instead of join...

Everybody sells hamburgers. So what happens when a retired school principal in Lafayette decides she’s going to build a restaurant around something nobody else is doing and she’s stubborn enough to stick with it? You get Creole Lunch House, a true local icon, and a stuffed bread that became a grab-and-go Louisiana comfort food long before “portable” was a food trend.

We sit down with Jason Herbert to talk about how his mom, Merlene, went from the school system to opening a tiny green building and quickly expanding into a bigger space. He shares what it took...

A chef’s origin story rarely starts with a white tablecloth. Ours starts with a kid making spaghetti and meat sauce at nine, moving every two years, and learning how to walk into any new place and make it work. We’re joined by Chef Kim of Cafe Sydnie Mae, and her path from Lafayette to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, then out to Colorado and back home, is packed with the kind of details food lovers never get to hear at the table.

We get into the moments that shape a real...

The oldest operating rice mill in the United States is not a museum piece. It’s a working building in New Iberia, Louisiana that still hums, creaks, and ships flavor across the country. We head to Konriko Rice Mill with Mike Davis to hear how a 1912 operation survives floods, market swings, and changing grocery store economics by staying stubborn about quality and brave about change. 

We get practical fast: what actually separates long grain, medium grain, and short grain rice, why Cajun kitchens love medium grain, and why restaurants often prefer parboiled rice for the steam table. Mik...

A burger can be a history lesson if you know where to listen. We sit down with Acadiana royalty from Judice Inn, one of Lafayette’s most iconic, family-owned restaurants, to unpack how a tiny 1947 curb service burger stand turned into a true community landmark. From post-WWII beginnings and 15-cent burgers to a dining room that still feels like a reunion, this conversation shows why the “best burger in Lafayette” debate is really about tradition, consistency, and the people behind the counter.

We get into what it’s like to grow up behind the restaurant, learning the work you...

Somebody told Milton Arceneaux's brother-in-law he was “too dark to be Creole” and it exposed a problem Louisiana still wrestles with: we celebrate culture, but we often misunderstand it, flatten it, or market it under the wrong name. So we sit down with Milton to talk about what Creole culture really means, how it shapes Louisiana food culture, and why documenting people and traditions is not nostalgia, it’s preservation.

We get into Milton’s roots in Lafayette, his belief that a passport can teach what school cannot, and how photography becomes his tool for truth telling. He break...

A flood, a rebuilt kitchen, and a decision to use the “good dishes” turned into something bigger than a dinner party. We sit down in Jason Stoner and Steven Rogers’ home to hear how Sunday Dinner Guys grew from a family birthday tradition into a monthly Lafayette supper club style night where strangers walk in and friends walk out. 

We get specific about what makes these nights feel unforgettable: choosing a theme, designing a seven to eight course menu, pairing drinks from the welcome cocktail to dessert, and sourcing ingredients from local Lafayette favorites whenever possible. They share t...

A dish can taste like Louisiana and still feel brand new, and Chef Kris Allen proves it. We sit down at Sunday’s Soda Fountain to talk with the Pamplona and Gravy chef behind the Louisiana Seafood King win, and we get into the details that separate a good plate from a great one: modern technique, relentless repetition, and a deep respect for the classics.

Kris walks us through the winning seafood dish built as a modern ode to crab-stuffed flounder, including the kind of kitchen “science” most people never see, like a warm corn panna cotta that h...

One bad cup of lemonade at an arts and crafts show turns into a decades-long, multi-state business and it starts with a simple thought: “I can make this better.” We sit down with Roy and Cynthia DeVillier from Roy’s Lemonade to hear how a Lafayette, Louisiana favorite goes from kitchen experiments and handwritten notes to festival lines that never stop. Along the way, we get the unfiltered truth about what it takes to build a food brand people trust, especially when your name is literally on the cup.

We dig into the early days selling in front...

A burger can be more than a meal. Sometimes it is a time machine. We’re at the table with Rick Cambray from Ground Pati to figure out why walking into the Johnston Street location feels like stepping into a perfectly kept piece of Lafayette history, right down to the pewter mugs and that warm, lodge-like vibe we can’t stop talking about. 

Rick’s journey is a story all on its own: River Parishes roots, an MBA, years in banking, and then buying into the restaurant world while still working full-time. We trace the Ground Pati origin...

A lake doesn’t just vanish every day, and a drilling rig doesn’t simply disappear without a trace. From a table at the Jefferson Cafe at Rip Van Winkle Gardens, we hear the lived, moment-by-moment story of the Lake Peigneur disaster on Jefferson Island, Louisiana, when a miscalculation punctures a salt mine and the water starts draining into the earth like a bathtub. The shock is immediate: tremors, alarms, darkness underground, and 52 miners fighting their way out as the lake above them turns unpredictable. 

We also dig into what comes after the headlines. Our guest connects the g...

A restaurant doesn’t last 30 years by accident, and Antoni’s didn’t become a Lafayette staple by chasing trends. We sit down with the original owners to hear how a deep bench of restaurant experience, relentless consistency, and a love for real Italian cooking shaped a place that feels romantic, reliable, and unmistakably local. Then we bring in current owners Holly and Eli to share how they carried that legacy forward without losing the soul of the dining room. 

You’ll hear the wild origin story behind the name, including the moment they realized they opened on the fe...

Two brothers can spend childhood arguing over breakfast cereal, then grow up to build one of Lafayette’s most talked-about restaurant groups. We’re sitting down with Patrick and Steven, the minds behind Bonton Grill and Whiskey and Vine, to unpack how their Vermilion Parish roots, years in the trenches, and a serious respect for hospitality systems shaped everything they do today. If you care about the Lafayette food scene, Cajun restaurants done with intention, or the real mechanics of restaurant entrepreneurship, this conversation delivers.

We get into the unglamorous training that makes the magic possible: learning serv...

A single sentence can haunt you for decades: “I should’ve given you that loan.” We sit down with Jose “Pepin” to follow the full arc behind that moment, from leaving Cuba in the 1960s to landing in San Juan, Puerto Rico with almost no money, and finding the one relationship that opened a door at the Royal Bank of Canada. What unfolds is a sharp, human look at how immigrant families rebuild through reputation, hard work, and the kind of trust you can’t fake. 

From there, Pepin walks us through the nuts and bolts of building a su...

He wrote a $50,000 check he couldn’t cover and treated the weekend like a deadline. That’s just one of the stories Pepin Jose shares with us, and it captures the spirit behind a name Lafayette food lovers already know: Pepin, the Cuban sandwich, and a family legacy built on bold decisions.

We talk through Pepin’s roots in Guantanamo, Cuba, and the life of his father, a promoter and entrepreneur who lived to 105 and somehow managed to be both disciplined and joy-forward. Along the way, we unpack the practical business lessons hidden inside the funny moments: why “p...

A bottle of barbecue sauce doesn’t usually come with a war story, a carhop restaurant, and a family passing the keys from one generation to the next but Jack Miller’s does. We sit down at the Jack Miller’s facility with Kermit and Christian Miller to trace how a Ville Platte restaurant called the American Inn became the roots of one of Louisiana’s most recognizable pantry staples, still made under the same family ownership since 1941. Along the way, we get the kind of details you never hear on a label: rationing-era improvisation, selling cases store-to-store, and the simp...

They tried to shut a young business owner down by writing a brand-new law, but they couldn’t even explain what the law meant. We’re back at Sunday Soda Fountain with David Irvin, and the story picks up as his Lafayette daiquiri shop goes national overnight, putting a spotlight on local enforcement, city politics, and the strange reality of “custom” regulation built around one business.

David breaks down how an open container ordinance landed on his counter, why the phrase “sealed container” became the entire battle, and how a no-frills solution (a strip of tape over the straw sl...

The drive-thru daiquiri feels like it’s always been part of Louisiana, but it started as one person’s risky idea and a whole lot of reading. We’re sitting down with Lafayette icon David “Tater” Ervin, the originator of the very first drive-thru daiquiri, to hear how a forestry major turned a frozen drink machine sighting into the Daiquiri Factory and a global phenomenon.

Tater breaks down the real playbook behind the legend: the marketing insight he stole from a Baskin-Robbins case study, why he insisted on launching with a huge flavor lineup, and how offering samples he...

Gerald Gruenig has the kind of personality you notice from across the room, but the story behind it runs deeper than social clips and zydeco nights. We talk with Gerald about growing up in Gentilly, New Orleans, with a full-blown po-boy shop under his bedroom, and how that front-row seat to plate lunches, regulars, and neighborhood life shaped the way he moves through Louisiana today. If you care about the Lafayette food scene, local restaurants, and the people who keep community culture alive, you’ll feel right at home here. 

From there, we get real about what it...

A lot of restaurant stories start with a menu. Ours starts with a building, a chipped tile floor, and a stranger who walks by and says, “That used to be the old soda fountain.” We’re sitting down with Mike and Setareh Delcambre inside Sunday Soda Fountain in downtown Lafayette, Louisiana, and they take us through the real behind-the-scenes journey of bringing historic spaces back to life without sanding off what made them special in the first place.

We talk about Mike’s early leap into creating 307 Jazz Club, the “trial by fire” moment of suddenly leading a team in hi...

A mayor who still keeps a hand in the restaurant? That combination sounds impossible until you meet Jan Scott Richard, the Mayor of Scott, Louisiana and the owner of Cajan's. Sitting down at Sunday Soda Fountain, we follow the path from growing up in Scott to chasing soccer all the way to Milwaukee and Tallahassee, then returning home with a clearer idea of what a strong community can look like.

We dig into the real-life mechanics of building a local restaurant in the middle of the Acadiana food scene: taking what worked from a deli background, adapting...

A 94-year run doesn’t happen by accident, and it definitely doesn’t happen by cutting corners. We’re sitting down at Poor Boy's Riverside Inn in Lafayette with Richard and Lori Hurst to hear what it takes to carry a multi-generation Louisiana restaurant forward while keeping the food, the service, and the standards consistent enough that regulars can taste the difference the second a recipe slips. Along the way, we get the kind of stories you only hear from people who’ve lived it, like training across every role, the old-school days of expanding to multiple locations, and the unfo...

A single lunch can change a city’s palate, and that’s exactly where this story starts. We’re at Poor Boy's Riverside Inn with Richard and Lori Hurst, chasing the real origin of a Lafayette restaurant that feels stitched into Acadiana itself. From a grandfather selling snowballs downtown in the 1930s to a po-boy that made customers stop and ask “what is that,” the early years are pure Louisiana hustle, built on big breakfasts, bigger workdays, and a stubborn belief that people will follow quality.

We walk through the pivotal moves, including the St John Street beginning...

Some places feed you. Others hold your whole history. Sitting at Randall’s with Heidi McDonald and Jason Stoner, we talk about why this room feels like “hallowed ground” for so many people across Acadiana, and how Cajun food and live music can turn a restaurant into a cultural anchor for Lafayette, Breaux Bridge, and beyond.

We dig into the hard part too: when COVID shut things down and the music stopped, it wasn’t just a business problem, it was an identity problem. Frank Randall shares what it takes to restart without losing the heart of the plac...

He flew crabs across the country, built dance floors people would tear up with crowbars, and kept Cajun culture loud when it would have been easier to let it fade. We’re on location at Mulate’s with the legend Frank Randol, following the threads that connect Randol's Restaurant, Breaux Bridge, Lafayette Louisiana food, and the stubborn pride of Acadiana.

We talk through Frank’s family history and the weight that comes with land, legacy, and community expectations. He shares why “saving” places like this is never just business, it is about preserving Cajun music, local stories, and the ki...

He moved to Lafayette because he looked at a US map and thought he was landing near the Bahamas. That one mistake turned into Poseidon, one of the most beloved Greek and Mediterranean restaurants in Lafayette, Louisiana and a place where generations celebrate birthdays, lunches, and late-night stories.

We sit down with Aristos of Poseidon to hear how he came from the island of Cyprus, studied at USL, and built a restaurant around family recipes, Greek hospitality, and relentless attention to detail. We talk about the culture shock of Holly Beach, why philoxenia (welcoming strangers) feels so...

Ronald McDonald showed up at Mark Krampe’s birthday parties at home and that’s only the beginning of how unusual his food story gets.

We sit down with Mark to talk about growing up in Lafayette inside a family that helped bring McDonald’s to the area, where procedure, cleanliness, and consistency weren’t buzzwords, they were daily life. That early training shaped how he sees restaurants now: strong systems, clear standards, and a team culture that protects the guest experience. Mark shares what it was like having a perfectionist father who secret-shopped his own stores, and how...

A great neighborhood restaurant doesn’t just feed people, it teaches them to come back. From the outside, Acadian Superette looks like a classic Lafayette corner store. Step inside, and you find a carefully rebuilt local market and deli where the history stays on the walls while the food keeps getting sharper.

We talk with the people behind the transformation: how a building dating back to the 1950-51 expansion of the original Petros grocery becomes a community gathering spot again, and why that matters in Freetown near downtown and UL Lafayette. The story gets personal fast, from th...

Eight hundred pounds of lasagna doesn’t happen by accident. We sit down with Joey Beyt of Joey’s, a literal Lafayette icon, to hear how a small, family-built meat market turns into what we love calling the city’s “auxiliary kitchen” a place where you can grab prime steaks, sushi-grade seafood, scratch-made soups and gumbos, and a freezer full of comfort food that saves your weeknight dinner. Joey walks us back to opening day, the early hustle, and the hands-on training that shaped his obsession with quality and consistency. 

We talk about what makes Joey’s feel like fiv...

A chef who learned by sanding beer boxes, waxing banquet-room floors, and listening to Creole cooks all day doesn’t need a flashy origin story. He needs consistency, standards, and a dining room full of regulars who keep coming back. From inside Nash’s Restaurant in Broussard, Louisiana, we sit down with Nash and Jenny Barreca to unpack how a family legacy in New Orleans becomes a long-running Acadiana favorite set in a stunning 1908 historic home that still has a few “spirit” stories floating around.

Nash walks us through his earliest lessons at Frank’s Steakhouse, why he sti...

Lafayette didn’t always know what pizza was, and Alesi’s Pizza helped change that. We sit down with the family behind one of the oldest Italian restaurants in Lafayette, Louisiana to follow a story that starts in Sicily, passes through Ellis Island, and lands in Acadiana in the most unexpected way: a WWII posting at an old Army air base and a chance meeting with a “little Cajun girl” at a downtown lunch counter. The result is a restaurant legacy that’s about more than food, it’s about how families put down roots and how communities adopt new traditio...

A great bakery doesn’t just sell pastries. It keeps a city’s memories warm, one loaf at a time. We’re sitting down at Sunday Soda Fountain with Patrick Poupart, the next-generation baker behind Poupart’s Bakery in Lafayette, Louisiana, to dig into how a true French bakery took root here and why people still drive in from out of town with an ice chest to stock up.

Patrick shares the family story that starts in France with serious craft training through the Compagnons du Devoir and leads to Poupart’s opening its doors in 1965. We talk about...

What if your second act became your town’s heartbeat? We sit down with Café Sydney Mae’s David Puckett to trace a late-career leap from insurance to the line, and how that jump—grounded in family, faith, and fierce hospitality—turned a 100-year-old Breaux Bridge building into a community hub for food, music, and art. David shares the moment his daughter needed a kidney and he became her donor, the decades he and Cheryl have poured into LOPA’s lifesaving mission, and why the restaurant hosts an annual night that brings donor families, recipients, and clinicians to the same table...

The smell of fried ribs hits first, then the line of boudin links, and finally the feeling that you’ve stepped into a modern Cajun country store where everything just works. We sat down with Doug Miller to unpack how Karchener’s grew from a bold bet in Scott, Louisiana into a thriving, multi-location market without sacrificing flavor, warmth, or control. The story winds through roofing crews in August heat, an oilfield scare, and a roadside realization: if you meet people where traffic stalls and serve food that tastes like home, they’ll keep coming back.

Doug shares...

What makes a restaurant unforgettable isn’t the plate, it’s the person who serves it. We sit down with Nidal Balbisi—founder behind Zeus, Agave, Baba Kebab, and more—to unpack how people-first hospitality, relentless presence, and creative fusion built some of Acadiana’s most-loved dining rooms.

Nidal takes us from Kuwait to LSU, through his first shifts as a dishwasher assistant, and into the front-of-house lessons that shaped everything to come. He explains why a Bud Light tastes better when the server knows your name, how forgiveness grows from genuine connection, and why every role—from dishwas...

A lively lounge across from a canning factory turned into a grocery where regulars grabbed bread, eggs, and ketchup after a beer—and that simple pivot launched a 70-year family legacy. We sit down with Blaine and Braden Broussard of Nunu’s to unpack how a third- and fourth-generation team built a beloved Acadiana staple known for bold boudin, cracklins, plate lunches, and the kind of customer care that makes a store feel like home.

We trace the early days from the Blue Room Lounge to a small-town meat market, where a curious brother-in-law began crafting house reci...

A house behind a tiny Lafayette restaurant once held a secret kitchen where a mother simmered sauces that would shape a city’s palate. From that backyard ingenuity to a French Quarter liquor store with the rare ability to sell both to-go and across the bar, Gene shares how grit, community, and a deep love for wine became the backbone of his restaurants. We walk through live-music nights at Time Plaza, the pivot that turned an oil bust into a wine education boom, and the mentorship ethos that helped five team members become sommeliers.

Hunter brings the ot...

A stranger in a Pueblo cafe hears the name “Todaro” and replies, “Don Calogero.” In a heartbeat, Gene’s family lore tilts from mystery to revelation, and what begins as a search for relatives becomes a tour of Prohibition-era Colorado, early Las Vegas watchmen, and the way immigrant networks quietly shaped American towns. We follow that thread back to Palermo, where a boy counts 44 steps down to the markets, learns ingredients by touch, and stores away recipes he never writes—just lives.

We explore how Gene’s parents chose a different path, refusing the underworld as they rebuilt after...

A near-miss with Alexandria, a sold family farm, and a steel-framed building that became Lafayette’s unofficial compass—turn left by Keller’s. We sit down with the Keller family to trace five generations of baking craft, from French roots in the 1700s to a downtown landmark that still runs on touch, timing, and tradition. This is a story about more than pastries; it’s about a living starter that links decades, antique machines that still work daily, and a team that keeps flavor anchored to place.

We unpack the evolution of Keller’s king cakes: a century-ol...