It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch

Acadiana is a culture obsessed with itself. That’s not unique, really. Regional pride is a thing in most places, wherever you go.  A strong cultural identity — or more precisely, identities — can create a powerful market for artists who can tap into it.  The ability to sell on social media or through e-commerce has only extended that reach. And that goes for pretty much any medium.  There’s the mo...

When you’re a designer, you’ve often got one customer: the one right in front of you. And you’ve got essentially one product: the one you’re making. With every job, you’re building both your reputation and your portfolio. But here’s the kicker. If you’re doing custom work, then your customer is also your boss.  No pressure.  But pressure — and lots of it — is how diamonds are made. Jewelry makers...

How do you convince a customer to buy a service they don’t know they need?  That’s often the steepest hill to climb for businesses that offer improvements on existing products.  If solving a problem is the surest path to success, then satisfaction in the market can be a real hurdle. But if what you do works that much better than what’s available, you’re bound to blow the competition away…or maybe...

Let’s say you want to own a business, but you’re not sure what kind. A clever idea is probably a good place to start, but believe it or not you don’t have to have your own concept or business model to own your own.  You could own a franchise. Franchises are everywhere in the American marketplace — think of ubiquitous fast food brands like McDonalds or Jimmy Johns. It’s a $500 billion industry repr...

What’s the point of working yourself stiff if you can’t take it with you when you go?  Younger folks in the American workforce get it. Maybe wealth and power aren’t what they’re cracked up to be if we’re all gonna give it up when we cross into the great beyond.  If Baby Boomers were work-a-holics, and Gen-Ex’ers the slacker generation, then Millennials and the generations after them have become th...

There’s a lot more to retail than selling something a customer wants. More and more, customers want experience.  They want to feel like they’re buying into something — a lifestyle, an ethos, a trend. Smart retailers, of course, know their customers. Really smart retailers know their customers better than they know themselves. Curation, then, is the name of the name.  Even with a treasure trove of...

Variety is the spice of life. Right? Well, in Louisiana spice is the spice of life! Or maybe flavor.  It’s beyond cliche that we like things spicy here. Although most cooks and chefs will tell you we like things well-seasoned.  No surprise then, that seasoning is a big business in this area. There are no shortage of homegrown seasonings or seasoning companies. Every family has their own favorite b...

Let’s talk about space. Not outer space — although we might get to that later — but the spaces we live and play.  On Earth, it’s a limited resource. Which makes it ideal for a business venture.  You might find yourself standing in front of a strip of vacant land and say to yourself, "How do I turn this into something that makes money?" Or you might say, "What if it was still…space?"  In a nutshell...

There’s a lot of business that happens in your home. More and more, it’s become the center of commerce. And that’s not just because of big delivery services. It takes a lot of products to run a home.  The essence of American consumerism is convenience. We’re all thrilled to spend a buck to do it the easy way.  Think about it: When was the last time you changed your oil? Sure, you could do it. But...

Yoga is crazy popular in the United States. And over the last decade, it’s only gotten more popular. In 2021, 34 million Americans took a yoga class. That’s up 15 million from a decade earlier. And the industry has adapted to Western exercise habits. It’s not a strictly spiritual practice here. It’s a way to build muscle tone and balance. It’s also a very competitive industry. Dozens of yoga studi...

The goal of pretty much every business is to grow. It’s the beating heart of capitalism. But scaling up is complicated. The bigger you get, the bigger the problems get. And it’s not a 1:1 ratio. The learning curve can get steeper and steeper as your operation adds new locations, new employees, new revenue streams.  Growing pains, however, are a good problem to have. Yes, the struggle is real. But...

"Be yourself." It’s what we’re all taught from an early age. When you get a little older you find out the world around you doesn’t make that so easy.  Taboos are stubborn. And even as we get more comfortable talking about sensitive or personal subjects — it can feel daunting to open up.  That’s where the idea of “safe space” comes in. It’s maybe a more common practice in psychotherapy and counseli...

It’s beyond a cliche at this point to say that folks in Acadiana have a special relationship with food. Whole towns are defined by their food festivals. You’ve got your gumbo festival, your rice festival , your sweet potato festival , your crawfish festival   - in the case of Delcambre - your shrimp and petroleum festival .  Of course, that’s thinking about food as culture or as commerce. More ess...

Selling or buying a house can be a slog. And that goes for both real estate agents and folks in the market. It’s an industry ripe for revolution. Many have tried. And the results have favored one side of the transaction over the other. The MLS — multiple listing service — added tremendous value to the role of the real estate agent. Then Zillow came along and empowered the buyer and seller.  Barret...

What do you actually want to be in your life? As a kid you can dream about being an astronaut or brain surgeon or sports superstar. As an adult it’s not so easy to answer that question, and it's especially difficult if life has thrown you a curveball and if you’re navigating trauma or hardship.  In that case, when you're struggling to put one foot in front of the other, "Purpose" might be the last...

Most customers are looking for value. They want the best product they can get at the best price. And the best price usually means the cheapest. No one haggles up.  In the jewelry business it kind of works the other way. Diamonds aren’t just precious; they’re priceless. "Priceless" is another word for "expensive." Consider the tradition of spending three months pay on a diamond engagement ring. The...

Don’t believe what they tell you. Life has a second act. In fact, some lives have three acts or four or five or maybe nine if you’re a serial entrepreneur.  The heart of business is creativity: the desire to make something new. The twist is that you want to make money on it. But for some entrepreneurs, the goal is bigger than that. Noble pursuits are much easier to pursue if you’ve already struck...

Here’s a not-so-fun fact: A family of four wastes $2,200 worth of groceries every year.  Fortunately, there’s a tasty way to solve that problem. Leftovers.  Leftovers put the Thanksgiving turkey in your turkey sandwich, or the Chinese takeout in your fried rice. Well, how about making a burger out of yesterday’s gumbo? Wait, what? Susanne Duplantis describes this as “Thinking outside the icebox.” ...

Acadiana isn’t really known for barbecue. What you get from your Sunday plate lunch joint is what barbecue purists would call “grilling.”  Or better yet, you’ll find pork steaks baked in a sticky syrup of barbecue sauce. Not exactly barbecue. But it’s delicious.  It’s sort of weird to be purist about barbecue. It’s a way of cooking that springs from necessity. But it’s become an art form. Somethin...

Holy guacamole! We’re not at Tula Tacos for this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana. We’re a few blocks down Jefferson Street, at Amis Grocery store .  If you’ve followed Downtown Lafayette development over the last few years, that’s kind of a big deal.  There’s always been this chicken and egg kind of thing happening with residential development and grocery stores Downtown. Developers wouldn’t buil...

In the mid-20th century, neighborhoods on Lafayette’s northside looked a lot like neighborhoods communities are trying to build now. In places like McComb, Veazey and Fightinville, families could live, work and play on their blocks.  The communities were stitched together by schools, churches — and businesses. Entrepreneurship was a big part of the fabric of the community: the family grocery store...

There is no shortage of podcasts. These days anyone can buy a microphone off the internet and start talking into it. The trick is finding an audience willing to listen. Passion is a great place to start. And there are few things people are more passionate about than music and food. So why not connect them? That’s been the recipe for success for Greg Bresnitz . It all started with a TV show — Dinne...

There’s nothing new under the sun, the saying goes. And that’s absolutely true in business. Revolutionary ideas are often old concepts made new again. It’s why the 1990s are making a comeback.  A smart entrepreneur might look back in time and realize that we fixed something that wasn’t broken. How about the family doctor. Time was, you had a personal relationship with your local physician: they kn...

One thing you learn in business is that the future comes at you fast.  As much as you try to stay ahead of the curve, the next big thing could already be around the corner.  And if you’re not aware of what’s coming, it could spell the end. Just ask Blockbuster Video.  Keeping up with trends can be a full-time gig. Smart companies who don't have an employee focused on the competition and the future...

What is Louisiana art? One definition might be — art that is unique to Louisiana. The market expects a certain version of Louisiana. And so we give consumers what they want: alligators, bayous, pirogues, French, spices and so on.  People want authentic Louisiana. And what they think of as “authentic” doesn’t quite reflect reality. That’s the drawback of havi...