When we talk about “growth,” we usually mean population, jobs, or maybe cranes on the skyline. But growth isn’t abstract — it’s physical. It’s steel. It’s dirt. It’s concrete. It’s towers you don’t notice and neighborhoods you drive past every day.

Christiaan's guests on Out to Lunch are both in the business of building up — literally. One builds the infrastructure that keeps business connected. The other builds the places people call home. Different materials, different risks — but surprisingly similar challenges.

Wiley Baxter is President and Owner of Custom Tower, a Louisiana-based company that designs, manufactures, and installs communication towers across the country. Wiley grew up in Pensacola, studied mechanical engineering at LSU, and spent time in corporate roles before buying Custom Tower in 2024, when its previous owners decided to retire.

Custom Tower builds the steel that holds antennas in the air — cutting, welding, galvanizing, assembling, and installing towers that can stretch hundreds of feet high. Their work is often for state and parish governments, and if everything goes right, you’ll never think about them at all.

Molly Creaghan is a regional manager at Dantin Bruce, a real estate development firm that handles projects from site selection all the way through leasing. 

Molly grew up in Baton Rouge, went to LSU, and started her career leasing apartments — discovering along the way that she really liked the puzzle of property management.

At Dantin Bruce, Molly oversees operations, marketing, budgeting, staffing, and owner relations across multiple properties. Their Lafayette project, Camellia Grove, is a 136-unit “built-to-rent” townhome community near River Ranch — a development designed to feel more like a neighborhood than an apartment complex.

Molly and Wiley are both examples of people in our community who are in occupations as vital as they are invisible. On Out to Lunch we love to take an oportunity to turn the spotlight on people who other media might not so readily acknowledge.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People in Acadiana love restaurants. They love talking about them, reviewing them, arguing about them. They always seem to think they could run one. Hey, if you can cook, why not? 

Here’s the thing: Restaurants are famously unforgiving businesses. Margins are thin. Labor is hard to find and harder to keep. One bad weekend, one broken piece of equipment, one stretch of slow traffic — and suddenly you’re wondering why you ever thought this was a good idea.

And yet, people keep opening them.

Maybe that’s because a successful restaurant can be an institution, a fixture of community from generation to generation. Take Ton’s, the diner and plate-lunch place founded in 1963 by the grandparents of Christiaan's lunch guest, Hollie Girouard. 

Hollie grew up in the restaurant. Ton’s was her second home long before it was her responsibility. A volleyball scholarship brought her to UL, where she studied graphic design and imagined a future in the visual arts. But restaurant life always sucked her back in.  

In 2023, Hollie opened Ton’s Downtown in Downtown Lafayette. It’s got all the Ton’s staples people expect — gumbo, burgers, plate lunches — with a little bit of a Downtown twist. Belly up to the bar and you can grab fresh juice, vegan options, frozen coffee, cocktails, and late-night service on weekends.

Between the Broussard and downtown locations, Ton’s employs about thirty people. Hollie runs both, takes a long-term view of growth, and describes her downtown strategy as a “slow burn.”

Dillon Van Way is the founder of Uncle Bob’s Food Truck Roundup, a boutique food truck park in downtown Lafayette. 

A food truck park makes a lot of sense in Downtown Lafayette — a dense area with relatively high foot traffic and a reputation as a food destination. But Dillon will be the first tell you it’s not easy getting a no-brainer. 

Dillon is an architect by trade. And as you can by now guess, his name is not Uncle Bob. 

The food truck park grew out of a real estate project. Dillon redeveloped a building into apartments and found himself with a vacant adjacent lot. Rising construction costs and inflation made traditional development unattractive, so he tried something else: a carefully designed food truck park. Uncle Bob’s opened during Mardi Gras of 2025. 

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some people make a living building things. Others make a living making those things look good.

There’s more to decoration than meets the eye. Space has a tremendous impact on how we think and feel. Sometimes it really is all about appearances, and that’s true whether you’re picking out curtains for your living room or designing an arch of balloons for a wedding. 

Our own spaces can tell the world a lot about who we are. Take a look at my desk for instance, and you’ll know right away I’m not someone you’d hire to design your workspace. For that, you should probably call my guest Krysten Ledet  

Krysten is the founder and owner of Krysten Ledet Interiors, a full-service design firm that handles renovations, new construction, spec homes, commercial spaces, and hospitality builds. She grew up in New Orleans and earned her bachelor’s in interior design from UL Lafayette before pursuing a master’s degree. She’s a certified interior designer and licensed contractor—so she’s as comfortable knocking down your walls as she is selecting your wallpaper.

Krysten's design philosophy is shaped by her childhood in New Orleans and by Hurricane Katrina, which put 20 feet of water in her childhood home and left a lasting impression about what "home" really means. After stints working for commercial clients, she returned to residential design and eventually launched her own firm in 2020, partly to spend more time with her family and partly to stop commuting to Baton Rouge.

Bianca Russo is the owner of Louisiana Balloons Atelier, a custom balloon and event décor studio based in Sunset.

Bianca grew up in Brazil, where balloon décor is serious business—and also her family business. Her mother ran a balloon shop and passed down the craft, though Bianca initially took a very different career path, attending dental school before moving to Canada and eventually becoming a dental assistant in Las Vegas.

After relocating to Louisiana, Bianca opened her own balloon studio in 2025. Louisiana Balloons Atelier offers everything from simple foil balloons to fully customized installations for weddings, birthdays, graduations, divorces, sporting events—basically anywhere cake is served, balloons follow.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Farming isn’t what it used to be.

Louisiana has lost thousands of small farms over the last few decades. The average farmer is over 58. Land prices keep going up, commodity prices keep wobbling, and modern farming techniques are about scale, not stewardship of the land. The small independent farmer — the icon of the American landscape — is by and large disappearing. But not everyone is signed up for extinction. 

Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are young cattle farmers who have thrown out the conventional big ag playbook, putting their sweat equity into sustainable practices that emphasize high standards of animal care and meat quality. 

Their meat story starts with a meet-cute in an animal science lab.  Molly (Abshire) LeJeune met Hayden LeJeune while at McNeese State.  She is from Little Cypress, Texas, where her family owned a big piece of land her grandfather once farmed. The land stayed in the family even after the farming stopped, which meant Molly grew up with a kind of open-ended question: What should this land be?

That question followed Molly into high school, where her family started buying beef from a woman practicing sustainable agriculture. That was Molly’s lightbulb moment. “I think I could do that,” she thought. By the time she graduated, she’d decided she wanted to farm — and not just farm, but farm differently.

At McNeese, Molly built her own curriculum — regenerative farming, soil biology, direct-to-consumer models. 

Meanwhile, about 80 miles east, Hayden LeJeune was growing up on a rice, crawfish, and cattle farm in Richard, Louisiana. Like a lot of farm kids, he wanted to stay on the land — but the math didn’t work. Most small farms can barely support one family, much less two. So Hayden went to McNeese for agribusiness, figuring he’d become a feed rep or crop consultant and farm on the side like everybody else. Then he met Molly.

By the time they graduated, Hayden’s dad decided to get out of cattle — and handed his son a small starter herd. Today, Molly and Hayden run Cypress Prairie Farms, a regenerative beef operation in Richard with about 40 head of cattle on 70 acres. No pesticides, no fertilizers, no grain byproducts, no antibiotics. Their cows rotate on pasture to rebuild soil, reduce pests naturally, and create something rare these days — a farm that is building land instead of depleting it.

At Cypress Prairie Farms, Molly and Hayden sell everything from steaks to marrow bones to beef shares at local farmers markets and online. Their beef is USDA processed, dry aged for flavor, and delivered with the kind of transparency you only get when you personally know the people raising your dinner.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We often think of “doing good” as the business of nonprofits. You start a foundation, apply for grants, hold gumbo cook-offs, and hope the IRS sees things your way. But what if you didn’t need tax-exempt status to make the world better? What if turning a profit and doing good weren’t opposites — but the same business plan? Turns out, a lot of small business owners in Acadiana are already doing it. No mission statements, no donor walls — just good work disguised as work.

Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana both run for-profit businesses that exist for something bigger than the bottom line. One makes magic — literally. The other runs a thrift store that funds community support. And both have built businesses around something very simple: joy and generosity.

If you’ve been to a library show, a school assembly, a corporate retreat, a kid’s birthday, or a surprise party gone slightly off the rails — there’s a decent chance you’ve seen this man making balloon animals. Mitch Richard is the owner of MLR Magic. He grew up in Kaplan, where he was a consummate class clown. 

Mitch's real stage debut came in 7th grade, when a teacher gave him the first five minutes of every class to “energize” the students — on one condition: Mitch had to keep a B average. By 16, he learned balloon art from Darcy Guidry — the legendary balloon guy at Hub City Diner — and started performing professionally a few years later. He’s now been “Mitch the Magician” for 25 years, doing more than 150 shows a year across Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Florida.

Mitch's company company books not just himself, but other performers, too. And while he performs everywhere from corporate parties to kids’ camps, his favorite shows are at assisted living facilities, where he says “people need to laugh the most.”

If Mitch works his magic through wonder, Lori Guillory works hers through generosity. Lori is the owner of Calvary Thrift, a faith-based thrift shop in Lafayette. 

Lori also runs Camp Calvary, a Christian summer camp, and Calvary Creek, an 8-acre event venue. 

Lori is a UL Lafayette grad, a lifelong thrifter, and — by her own admission — someone who didn’t set out to run more than one business, but kept doing it because she saw needs that weren’t being met.

Calvary Thrift employs eight people, sources locally donated goods, and donates profits into groups like The Hub, The Outreach Center, church ministries, and rent-assistance programs. 

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a temptation in business to want everything fast. Fast growth, fast profits, fast success. But the most durable things—the things that actually last—are often built slowly and with intention.

My guests on this edition of Out to Lunch understand that patience is a strategy. Both came to their current work almost by accident. And both are choosing growth on their own terms.

Allyson Romero is the founder of Grow Leadership Coaching. She spent eight years teaching in Lafayette public schools and later moved into management roles in the private sector. Allyson thrived as a manager, but it wasn't until she received leadership coaching as part of her own professional development that something clicked.  She realized she loved coaching, she was good at it, and it aligned with who she actually was. When she was laid off in 2024, instead of looking for another management job, she took it as a sign to start Grow Leadership Coaching.

Grow Leadership Coaching is a local firm that offers individualized coaching to help managers and executives maximize their performance and reach their goals. They work on skills like effective communication and time management through one-on-one sessions or team coaching. 

Most of Allyson's clients are already in leadership roles, and she's intentional about finding the right fit—she meets with prospective clients first to make sure it's a good match for both of them. Right now, it's a side venture for her, but one she's committed to growing with intention and a strong reputation.

While Allyson is sizing up the right client, Mary Hays is getting runners into the right pair of shoes. Mary is the owner of Geaux Run by Fleet Feet in Lafayette. 

Mary has been active her whole life—cross-country runner in high school, swimmer, golfer, paddleboarder. But she spent her career at Teche Electric before being hired as manager of Geaux Run in 2012. She bought out the shop’s owners to become sole proprietor. When the opportunity came to join the Fleet Feet franchise in 2018, she was strategic about it — and she didn't sacrifice local control. 

Geaux Run is a specialty athletic shoe and apparel retailer focused on proper fit. They carry running shoes, socks, GPS watches, inserts — everything the avid runner needs. What sets them apart is their commitment to fitting. They use 3D foot scans to ensure every customer gets the right shoe for their needs. The store also hosts free demo runs when new shoes release, collaborates with podiatrists and physical therapists to offer their customers discounts, and is a major sponsor of local running clubs and youth programs like Girls on the Run.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some people discover their calling by accident. Literally. An injury or an illness or divine providence can lead to a vocation. You might call each of my guests today healers. But neither started out with the idea of becoming one. They were patients first — searching for relief when the medical system didn’t always have the answers.

That journey led them to very different paths. One through modern medicine and physical therapy. The other through the centuries-old practice of faith healing. 

Becca Begnaud is a traiteur, a Cajun faith healer. She grew up in Scott, Louisiana, in a family and community where traiteurs were part of everyday life. If you had warts, a sprained ankle, or a headache, you went to see someone with the prayer.

But it wasn’t until Becca was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1989 that she began to take up the practice.  A nun suggested she look into healing work. She studied Reiki, trauma first aid and worked in hospice care. Eventually she embraced her role as a healer in Acadiana.

For Becca, healing is community, it’s connection, it’s laughter and prayer. She’s practiced for decades as a volunteer, never charging for her services, and today she continues her work from her office in Lafayette.

Philip Thibodeaux is the founder of Restore Physical Therapy and Wellness in Lafayette.

Philip grew up in Monroe and followed in the footsteps of his mother, who was a physical therapist. But his own story as a patient shaped how he thinks about care.

At 14, Philip suffered a severe shoulder injury that went undiagnosed for months. By the time doctors discovered a torn labrum, the damage was done. He suffered through three surgeries and countless hours of physical therapy before he turned 30. The experience made him determined to treat patients differently than he had been treated.

After working for a major healthcare agency, Philip became frustrated with the corporate approach — overbooking, inconsistent and inconsiderate care. In 2025, after the birth of his son, he struck out on his own. He launched Restore, a boutique clinic that emphasizes personalized care and new techniques like SoftWave therapy.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sometimes the best businesses don’t start with a big plan. They start with nothing: no money, no equipment, no idea what you’re doing. Just a problem to solve, a skill in your back pocket, and the determination to figure it out.

That’s how Christiaan's two guests on this edition of Out to Lunch ended up where they are. One is making home furnishings from scraps. The other turned a pine tree into a broadband company. Both, you might say, made something from nothing.

Matthew Latiolais is the owner of Cajun Salvage Company. Matthew grew up in Lafayette and got his first lesson in welding at sixteen from a boatbuilder — thanks to his grandfather, who volunteered him for the job.

After college, Matthew spent his early career in the oilfield, but when the industry hit a downturn, he found himself sending out résumés to nowhere. Eventually, he decided the only thing left to do was work for himself.

In 2015, Matthew founded Cajun Salvage, a shop specializing in woodworking, metal fabrication, and architectural salvage. His first jobs came from tearing down barns and reclaiming materials. Now he builds everything from custom cabinets to cypress tables to barn doors — often based on whatever clients find on Pinterest. He’s also a Master Craftsman and a member of the Louisiana Crafts Guild.

Chris Disher is Managing Director of Cajun Broadband. Chris is a mechanical engineer by training, born in Ponchatoula and raised in Morgan City. He spent more than two decades in oil and gas, living and working all over the world.

When Chris and his family moved to a blueberry farm in St. Martin Parish, they ran into a different kind of problem: terrible internet. Chris’s kids begged him to sell the farm and move to the city, but instead Chris and a friend stuck an antenna in a pine tree and got 60 megabits per second. That was the start of Cajun Broadband.

Founded in 2017, the company now provides fiber and wireless internet to nine parishes, and employs 10 people. Cajun Broadband grew even faster through state and federal broadband grants: the company landed a $26 million grant to connect 9,000 homes.  Chris says they started in a tree, and now their service is faster than some city providers.

Chris and Matthew's business histories, though as different as analog wood and digital fiber, are both proof that sometimes the best way forward is to stop waiting for someone else to solve the problem, and just build the solution yourself. It doesn't get much more Cajun than that. And that's how you get Cajun Salvage and Cajun Broadband.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’re going to run a good business, you’ll need to know the tools of your trade, literally and figuratively. Sometimes it’s knowing how to find talent. Other times it’s owning the crane nobody wants to buy. Because here’s the thing: every project needs both muscle and machines. And neither comes cheap these days, especially in the world of construction. 

The U.S. construction industry needs around 439,000 new workers this year just to keep up with demand, according to some estimates. So when someone says “tools,” they might mean manpower — or literally heavy machinery.

If you’ve taken on a home renovation project recently, you might have noticed that it can be hard to find the guy or gal for the job. 

Grant Alexander is Board President of the Master’s Guild of Acadiana, an organization set up to train people for the trades and fill the skills gap. Grant was born in Gulfport, lived in Lafayette, and studied communication at UL. While running an insulation business, he saw firsthand that having tools means nothing without people who can use them. 

Later, Grant opened a local home fixtures franchise and again ran into the same roadblock. They had the supplies, but not the skilled workers to install them. That experience inspired the Master’s Guild of Acadiana.

Now, the Master’s Guild teaches everything from basic construction skills to job-readiness. The goal is to help budding builders hit the job site ready to work. 

Even a skilled worker needs the right tool. And sometimes, the right tool is an excavator. Troy Dowling is Branch Manager at SitePro Rentals in Broussard. SitePro offers the machines tradespeople need but often can’t justify owning. 

Troy was born in New Iberia, and spent six years in the Marine Corps after which he carved out a career at Haliburton. He retired after 30 years, but he couldn’t sit still for long. He got a job at SitePro where oversees a tool-fleet valued at over $14 million, with everything from skid steers to massive booms, serving both contractors and DIY folks who don’t want to buy but need to lift.

There can be a lot of satisfaction in doing home repairs and renovations yourself. If you know what to do you can go on down to Site Pro, see Troy, and get the tools you need to do it. If you don't know what to do, satisfaction is replaced by frustration and it's better, faster, and ultimately cheaper to get someone who does know what they're doing to come do it for you. In Acadiana we can thank Grant and the Master's Guild for making sure we have those folks to call on. 

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wellness isn’t just kale smoothies and yoga classes anymore.

It’s mushrooms as brain boosters, IV drips for recovery, tinctures, biohacking, and more. These trends aren’t fringe, they’re big business, generating $1.8 trillion in U.S. sales alone in 2024. And they’re on the move in Acadiana too. 

Christiaan's guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are building businesses in Acadiana riding these same waves — functional mushrooms, hydration therapies, supplements, biohacking — they all are part of wellness, and more than a buzzword.

Daisy Kerne is co-founder of All Caps Gourmet Mushrooms, founded in 2019 with Michael Campbell. Daisy’s from Loreauville, Louisiana, though she moved back and forth between there and Lafayette during her youth.

Daisy studied plant science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and balances her time between her mushroom business, doing food demos, and nutrition counseling for cardiac rehab patients. As a single parent, she managed multiple gigs while homeschooling, and when Michael asked, “Hey, do you want to grow mushrooms?”, she took a leap.

Their current operations include fresh mushrooms, tinctures, seasoning blends, workshops, and growing kits. 

DeAnna Smith is founder of Dripsy IV Bar.

DeAnna is originally from Pineville, Louisiana, holds a business administration & marketing degree, then became an RN after an accident involving an 18-wheeler changed her perspective. She started doing IV hydration on weekends while working as an insurance case nurse.

Deanna gradually built a waitlist for IV treatments, and in 2024 opened the first brick-and-mortar Dripsy IV Bar in Alexandria. That’s Dripsy…as in “everybody in the club getting dripsy.” 

Since then, Dripsy has grown to three new locations, including adding outposts in Lafayette and Lake Charles in 2025. Dripsy offers IV drips, weight loss options, shots, telehealth, peptide treatments, and biohacking services.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.