It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch

As 2020 draws to a close, thankfully, we take a look back at Acadiana's wide world of sports. There can be a lot of pressure to take on the family business, especially when the family name becomes  synonymous  with the industry they work in. Imagine what it must be like to be a Hilton or a Disney or a Manning. Everybody copes with it differently. Some embrace it. Some make their own mark...

In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes, or so Andy Warhol told us. That was pretty much a lie. But in fairness to Andy he probably couldn’t have predicted going viral. Today, people are fragmented into pockets of fame for all kinds of reasons. Celebrity isn’t just for gilded people on the coasts, it’s attainable by anyone, anywhere, anyhow, and you can get it...

Education was already on its way to a new normal before the coronavirus was around. Technology made sure of that. Before School 2020, virtual learning was en vogue at all levels. Of course, the pandemic accelerated the changes already in place and that came with a lot of growing pains for students, for families, for educators and for the companies that build the things that make learning in the mo...

A good idea never really goes out of style. In the food industry, that’s because the basics have remained pretty much the same since restaurants and commercial cooking were invented. Make something tasty and deliver it to your diners with good service: it’s a universal recipe for success. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s like baking. All the ingredients can be there:...

Right after World War II, the U.S. government invested heavily in the American dream. The idea was to create a nation of homeowners. So the federal government got in to the lending business, subsidizing the building of suburban America and giving birth to a massive middle class. It created unprecedented wealth passed along from generation to generation. The impact of those programs can still ...

It’s a cliche now that everyone has a brand. Drawing distinct boundaries around you are, what you do — and maybe just as importantly what you don’t do — isn’t just for selling toothpaste anymore. It’s what people do. They trademark their identities.  Branding of course has its own professional standards that vary from industry to industry. How you sell...

Over the last few years, Southwest Louisiana has boomed. Billions in petrochemical investments poured into the region and put Lake Charles on an economic tear.  And there were plenty of entrepreneurs to take advantage of the bonanza. With big ticket clientele around and plenty of work, prosperity in Lake Charles market was the envy of the state.  The pandemic put a halt to that. Just lik...

It wasn’t that long ago that eating organic was a niche kind of thing. Convenience was king and farm-to-table restaurants were seen as little more than a trend for diners with big wallets. You might find some novelty snacks at a grocery — or if you had a Whole Foods around and the willingness to spend your whole paycheck. But eating “organic” is really how we ate for most o...

Christiaan Mader was unexpectedly out of commission today so we've decided to take a trip back to our Best Of vault and make a return to the life of pies. When we hear about people who are successful in business, we tend to hear different versions of a familiar story. Somebody with a singular vision relentlessly pursues an idea, till, against all odds and after all kinds of hardship, they create W...

Remember back in the BC (Before Covid) days when we had a music business? In this edition of Out to Lunch we look back on this conversation originally recorded in 2018. In Acadiana there are a lot of things that differentiate us from the rest of the country. The biggest of all of them is music. You can live in Kansas and learn to make a gumbo. You can live in California and row a pirogue. But ther...

When you have a business, you usually have some sort of a business plan. Even if you don’t run endless spreadsheets, you have goals, and an idea of how things will look if everything goes right. And, though you might be a bit more reluctant to think about it, you generally have an idea of what things might look like if you hit a lean period. But, no matter how carefully you plan for eve...

If you’re talking to somebody and you’re discussing how far it is from here to your place, you might say “It’s a long way.” The person you’re talking to can say, “How far is it exactly?” You can tell ‘em, “Three miles,” and they can decide if they regard that as a long way or not. Here in Acadiana, it’s equally important to ha...

Louisiana shares the abbreviation “L.A” with the city of Los Angeles. Although that sometimes leads to some confusion on paper and online, in the real world there is very little overlap between the LA lifestyle in the desert west and the LA lifestyle in the humid South. For example, if I was to say “burritos” you’d say Los Angeles. If I was to say “poboys”...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Biographies and Boxing. History is a messy business. It’s full of mixed and conflicting perspectives. It’s subject to revision — for the right or wrong reasons  And while it’s tempting to think of it as a colle...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Louisiana Silicon Bayou. The term "Silicon Bayou" has been around for some time. It’s the promise of a new economy for Louisiana, sometimes thought of in New Orleans. Beyond the confines of the Crescent City, the Louisiana Silic...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Boudoir Photography. Maybe you think Boudoir Photography - intimate, seductive portraits taken for romance or personal empowerment - is something that happens in other places. After all, we're pretty conservative around here. Aren't we? We...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: The Music Business. If you're in the music business and you can get a dollar for every time somebody says "The music business is changing," you'll probably make more money than however you're making it now in the music business.  Yes,...

As Out to Lunch prepares to go back to hosting live lunches, for inspiration we're taking a look at some of our pre-Covid shows. Here's an Out to Lunch Best of: Saving Birds and Saving Schools. Normally on Out to Lunch we're talking about for-profit businesses. But here in Acadiana - maybe more than anywhere else in the country - there are organisations and people dedicated to making a difference...

Wherever you live in Louisiana, or anywhere in the US for that matter, you might have noticed something has changed in your local supermarket, in offices, and even in airports and hotels. That something is, plexiglass. Those giant sheets of plexiglass that now stand between you and the person on the other side of a counter are called Sneeze Guards. Have you wondered where they suddenly all came fr...

If you had to list two of the pillars of American existence you might choose Liberty & Justice. Or, maybe Equality & Opportunity. Well, how about Rent & Beef? Rent The pandemic has forced us to confront a number of economic issues that were due for examination. One of them is the rental market. Even without the added stress of reduced pay or a lost job, renting can be a strained relati...

Back when we first started making Out to Lunch in New Orleans, one of our earliest guests was a young woman by the name of Amy Chenevert. Amy had gone to a football game and realized that all the guys were wearing fan fashion, but there was nothing fashionable for women to wear on game day. So Amy started up a company that made gameday apparel for women sports fans. That was back in 2007. During t...

How’s the social distancing going? Are you managing to keep 6 feet away from everybody else? How do you figure out what 6 feet is? We’ve heard people describe it as the length of two supermarket shopping carts, or the same height as Drew Brees, if you can imagine Drew lying on the ground in front of you.  If you’re working with other people in industry, in construction, on a...

On this edition of Out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuti, Stephanie Riegel and Christiaan Mader meet at the nexus of the Latinx Hub City Pang Wangle. Okay, let's unpack that: LatinX There’s no two ways about it – this is a tough time to be in business. There is help available to get through this rough patch – in the form of business loans, and even grants. Some are through Federal a...

On this edition of out to Lunch, Peter Ricchiuti and Christiaan Mader discuss the daily ritual of deleting email, but not dog dating email. Email You Don't Want to Delete Opening this segment of Out to Lunch, Peter says, "I’m always wary of hosts of shows like this who start off a story with, “If you’re like me…”  But I’m willing to go for it right now, be...

Although most businesses in the US and around the world are hurting as a result of the global pandemic, some businesses are booming as a direct result of the lock-down. Yes, there is an upside to Covid 19. Pang Wangle Before a previous disaster, Hurricane Katrina, blew Stephanie Riegel and her family to Baton Rouge, Stephanie was a journalist and news anchor at WWL TV in New Orleans. One of Stepha...