It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch

Some little girls grow up wanting to be a princess. Some little girls want to be a big star. And other little girls grow up wanting to be executive producer of a major live event where they get to control everything from the music to wardrobe to catering. When little girls actually do grow up, there is one magical day where all these dreams come true. Their wedding day. Of the thousand and one decisions that have to be made when you put on a wedding, the two paramount issues for the bride are what she s wearing, and what her bridesmaids are wearing. In Lafayette, brides have the exclusive opportunity to build the gown of their dreams with celebrity designer Pedram Pasha Taheri, of Pedram Couture. Pedram s gowns have been worn by women marrying NFL and NBA stars and by celebrities Christina Milian, Gretchen Rossi, Serayah McNeill from "Empire" the show, not the town in Plaquemines and many more. Now you ve got your bridal gown sorted out, onto the bridesmaids. How on earth do you get five women who have completely different tastes and body types to look good in matching outfits Good news. In Lafayette there are people who can answer that question. They can be found at a business called Bella Bridesmaids. Bella Bridesmaids have literally hundreds of dresses from some of the world s leading designers. And if you re having a destination wedding out of town they ll even ship your bridesmaids dresses for you. Meghan LeBlanc is the co owner of Bella Bridesmaids. In the next 30 minutes you ll learn everything you need to know and more about what goes into dressing a bridal party. It s every bit as dramatic as you think. Photos at Social by Gwen Aucoin.

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Things are changing around here. A few years ago, you never heard the words "entrepreneur" and "Acadiana" in the same sentence. Then we started to see what s known an "entrepreneurial ecosystem" grow up here. That s where people start up new businesses based on all kinds of outlandish ideas far removed from our usual oil and gas economy. To help these businesses succeed there are business incubators, business accelerators, angel investors, and even some access to venture capital to grow these new businesses. Because this is how household name tech businesses were born and grew up in Silicon Valley, people around here started saying, "If this entrepreneurial ecosystem is so great, shouldn t we have our own success story Like Google or Facebook " Well, guess, what As of 2018 we do. It s called Waitr. Waitr is a food delivery app that connects hungry people to restaurants. You place an order on your Waitr app. Waitr s proprietary technology sends your order to a restaurant. And in the real world, Waitr sends a driver who picks up your order and delivers it to you. In case you re thinking this is far too simple of a concept to be as big as Facebook, Waitr sold to the owner of the Houston Rockets and Landry s restaurants, for 308m. And it s barely started growing. Chris Meaux founded Waitr in Lake Charles in 2015. As a part of the company s sale, Chris is going to stay on as CEO. And when Waitr goes public, later this year, Chris will be Chairman of the Board. This sensational overnight success has taken Chris 23 years of hard work in the tech sector to achieve. In this candid conversation with Aileen Bennett, Chris chronicles where he s come from, where he s at, and, more importantly to him, the long road of deliveries and deliverables he has ahead. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Thomas Peters.

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If you re a kid today you hear stories from your parents and grandparents about how they grew up and you only hope that if your parents treated you like that someone would call Child Protective Services on them. Things like, parents making their kids go outside and play. Kids having to walk or bike places not being driven anywhere. No snacks between meals. No TV. And no phone. If you re a parent, you re continually struggling to get your kids to put down the phone, get outside, and do something that resembles what used to be regarded as normal human interaction for children. Aileen s guests on Out to Lunch are here to help parents with that struggle. John Jordan is the owner of Gracie Jiu Jitsu in Youngsville. As its name suggests, it s a place where kids and adults go to learn the specialized martial art of traditional, aka Brazilian, Jiu Jitsu. April Peters describes herself as the "Creator of Magical Experiences" at Hello Dancer, a dance studio for kids. Hello Dancer is not your typical dance studio which is traditionally a semester long rehearsal for an end of year recital. Hello Dancer s mission is to provide a stress free and fun experience for kids and parents where kids learn to love to dance, and develop a healthy sense of determination and accomplishment. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Thomas Peters.

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For most of human history, we ve looked to our political leaders to bring about change. We can go all the way back to Cesar, Napoleon, Churchill, and Lincoln. Since the industrial revolution, we ve been able to add the names of business leaders who have radically changed our world. Henry Ford. Sam Walton. Steve Jobs. Currently, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are changing everything from groceries to space travel. On a smaller scale, here in Acadiana, individuals in business are having an impact on our lives. Cian Robinson moved here from New Jersey because his wife, Dr Nathalie Harder, took over as Chancellor of South Louisiana Community College. Cian had a background in business development and landed a job here in Lafayette as Executive Director of the Lafayette General Foundation. Cian s current position at Lafayette General Health System is Executive Director of Innovation, Research, and Real Estate Investments. Dr Ryan Cazares comes from Scott Louisiana. Ryan graduated from the University of Houston in 2011. Instead of joining an existing medical clinic, he came home to Scott, and in 2013 founded Scott Eye Care. Ryan is the only eye doctor who s ever had a clinic in Scott. In business, being the first and only can go one of two ways. Either you find out there s a good reason there are no businesses like yours. Or, it s just what everybody has been waiting for. Luckily for Ryan, Scott Eye Care has turned out to be the latter. So many people in the medically under served populations in Rayne, Crowley and Church Point make the trek to Scott that Scott Eye Care now has two doctors and is looking to expand. Aileen Bennett knows more about the provision of healthcare in Acadiana than she might like. Her depth of knowledge pays off in this frank discussion about the health of our local and national healthcare system. Photos at Marcello s wine Market Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.

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Sometime over the past few years, the meaning of the world "business" has changed. Business used to be something that men in suits conducted in offices and on golf courses. Today, some of the most successful men in business don t own a suit. And business is no longer a boy s only club. Shows like Shark Tank make business look like a game anybody can play if you re prepared to roll the dice and partner for life with someone you met 12 minutes ago. And then there s the ubiquitous app. You can apparently dream one of those up on Friday, and by Monday you ll be making millions in the App Store. Some of those stories are true. But most of us have more modest dreams. We d like to be our own boss and have our own business. We d like to be able to pay the bills and save a little. And if we could accomplish that much we d be happy. The main obstacle to achieving even these modest dreams is, simply, a lack of business know how. We might be born with a talent to make, build, or perform, but most of us are not born with business skills. In some places you d have to go to business school to acquire those skills. Here in Acadiana, help is closer at hand. Heidi Melancon is Executive Director of the Louisiana Small Business Development Center. The LSBDC as most people refer to it helps start and grow small businesses out of its offices at UL. They ve been around since 1983 and Heidi has been running the show since 2014. 2014 was also the year Anne Falgout became Executive Director of the Vermilion Economic Development Alliance. The alliance is based in Abbeville and helps start and grow businesses in Vermilion Parish. If you re already in business and want to grow, or you want to get into your own business but are not sure how to do it, this edition of Out to Lunch will be instructive and inspirational. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.

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We often hear financial news pundits talking about manufacturing. Mostly in terms of how manufacturing has all but disappeared from the United States. Locally, you might think of manufacturing as the businesses on Highway 90, and other industrial locations, that make equipment for the oil field. But there are other forms of manufacturing that are not giant plants churning out things made of steel. They re small shops turning out products made of wood. And fabric. You might not think of a storefront like Parish Ink as a manufacturing plant. But actually, that s what it is. Parish Ink has been manufacturing their own Acadiana centric designer T shirts and other apparel since 2010. They currently have three locations in Lafayette. They sell their products nationwide. And they do custom designing and printing for customers from Houston to California. Tom Brown is co founder, owner, and Operations Director at Parish Ink. Manufacturing on a big scale can be a pretty soulless endeavor. Small scale manufacturing, on the other hand requires heart, soul, and particular craft skills where art and design meets machinery. That s what goes on at Cross Grain Studios in Lafayette. You ve probably seen Cross Grain Studio s wooden signs all around Lafayette outside businesses and subdivisions and if you ve ever been in the market for getting furniture you care about repaired or antiques restored, Cross Grain is the go to wood shop. Noah Mudge is the owner and operator of Cross Grain Studio. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.

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You may have heard the story about the famous bank robber, Slick Willie Sutton. In the early 1950 s, after a series of bank robberies, the police finally caught up with Slick Willie. When he was asked why he robbed banks, Mr. Sutton explained, "Because that s where the money is." Well, times have changed. Today, we think of someone completely different when we hear the name "Slick Willie." And banks are no longer necessariy the best place to find money, at least not if you re looking to borrow capital to invest in your business. Here in Louisiana, one of the alternative places you can turn to for bisness financing is Cardinal Capital Commercial Financial Services. Cardinal reportedly has over 4,000 sources of capital, including pension funds and insurance companies, who are ready to put money into Louisiana businesses. The CMO and partner in Cardinal Capital is Rob Powell. In business, everybody loves a success story. We all want to be successful. But, if by success, we think of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos, we re most likely all going to have to define ourselves as failures. One of the keys to success is defining what success looks like, to you. Maybe it s tons of money. Maybe it s a small fishing camp. Maybe it s having a career that gives you a work life balance. Whatever it is, once you ve defined it, you can map out a path for how to get there. That, of course, is a lot easier said than done. Unless you know Joel Dawson. Joel Dawson is a business consultant, a sales consultant, and motivational speaker. If you ve ever had periods of self doubt, where you ve wondered if any of your hard work will ever amount to anything, a few minutes with Joel will dispel all of those thoughts surer than a shot of whisky and a Roddy Romero song. Photos over lunch at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.

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When you have a small business in a small market, like Acadiana, you re facing challenges today that nobody has faced before you. There is no previous generation to turn to for advice on how to compete with online retailers. Or how to market to your local customers who might live next door but are getting all of their information online. These are essential issues that every small business has to confront. Aileen s guests on this edition of Out to Lunch are both helping local small businesses bridge the gap between the brick and mortar world where we live, and the online world where it can feel like everybody else lives. Megan Blanchard is co founder and CAO that s Chief Administrative Officer for a company called Digital Product Solutions. Digital Product Solutions specialize in giving small businesses an online presence. They build websites and do social media marketing, at price levels that are affordable for local small businesses. Zack Wright is Business Development Manager at Towny. Towny is an app. It s only available at this point in a few select locations across the country Indiana, Texas, Arkansas, and here in Acadiana. If you download the Towny app on your phone or tablet you ll be able to access special deals and products from local business. If you re a local business, you can get your business onto the Towny app and reach all of those people in your local community who are looking at their phones or tablets for information and deals. Somebody, somewhere is going to create the new model that combines online and real world retail. Time will tell if Towny is that solution. If it is, Digital Product Solutions will get the word out. Photos at Marcello s Wine Market and Cafe by Lucius Fontenot.

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There seems to be a never ending debate about healthcare in the United States. In this debate there are four main parties. The patient. Government. Insurance companies. And doctors. Despite their differences of opinion, all of these parties claim to agree on one simple thing. And that is, medical decisions are best made by doctors. Despite that, the fact is we have a healthcare system that is anything but simple, and that often filters medical decision making through a financial lens. In 2004, a group of doctors in Lafayette launched a business that would concentrate as much of the medical decision making as possible in their hands. They opened their own hospital. Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital is a 20 bed physician owned hospital with 8 operating rooms, 3 procedure rooms, and a caseload of 8,000 patients a year. The CEO of Lafayette Surgical Specialty Hospital is Buffy Domingue. If you live in a city or even a reasonably populated small town, the biggest problem you have seeing a doctor is getting an appointment. But if you live in a more rural setting, or maybe you work offshore on an oil rig, getting to see a doctor can be anything between a severe hardship and an absolute impossibility. A Lafayette medical company, Xstreme MD has solved that problem. Xstreme MD lets you see a doctor no matter where you live or work. All you need is an internet connection and Xstreme MD will put you in a virtual doctor s office with whichever type of physician or specialist you need to see. Since its inception in 2009, Lafayette based Xstreme MD has become one of the country s leading exponents of remote health care. Xstreme MD s Chief Medical Officer is Dr Michael Odinet. Peter Ricchiuti, professor of finance at Tulane University and host of Out to Lunch New Orleans, sits in for Aileen Bennett on this edition of Out to Lunch. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.

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After the oil crash of the mid 80 s, everybody around here realized that for the economy to come back, and for us to have a chance of surviving a future downturn, we d need to diversify. In other words, we d have to start up businesses here that employ people in fields other than oil and gas. That s easy to say. But we live in a free market economy. Politicians can t direct people to startup businesses. Nonetheless, look what happened. Another oil crash came along. Just a couple of years ago. It did certainly impact us. But not nearly as badly as the crash in the 80 s. Because, yes, our economy is now diversified. So, how did that happen One of the reasons is, if you have an idea for a business outside of oil and gas, you no longer have to leave Acadiana to make it happen. There are now avenues to take you from startup to success. There s people to help you set up your business and even find investors. Two of those business builders are The Opportunity Machine and Innov8 Acadiana. Destin Ortego is Program Administrator at the Opportunity Machine. Pete Prados is Program Director at Innov8 Acadiana. Tulane University finance professor and host of Out to Lunch New Orleans, Peter Ricchiuti, sits in hosting this episode of Out to Lunch Acadiana for Aileen Bennett. Photos at Cafe Vermlionville by Lucius Fontenot.

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