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Vincent Butler is watching CNN in Maryland. Henry Augustus is hunkered down with family in Baton Rouge, and Vincent’s City Club, the New Orleans East restaurant they own, is slowly filling with water. This was the scene last August as Katrina swept the area. Located between the Intracoastal Waterway and Lake Ponchartrain, Vincent’s took in 6 feet of dark, wet filth. In one horrific week, everything about New Orleans changed. After serving sweet barbecue ribs, fried catfish and crawfish étouffée to a steady stream of regulars for eight years, it was looking more and more like the best move for Butler and August’s neighborhood restaurant was to simply switch neighborhoods.

Augustus had a cousin here, so the partners set their sites on Baton Rouge.

“It was a difficult decision,” Augustus says. “We could have waited around to see what was going to happen, but the opportunity came up in Baton Rouge, and we took it.”

Work began just weeks later on converting a vacated Mexican grocery on Florida Boulevard across from Bon Carre into the new Vincent’s City Club. The restaurant and nightclub reopened Dec. 31, 2005, right on time for its annual New Year’s Eve bash. In a new city with new friends, it was a bittersweet New Year’s with plenty to celebrate, plenty to worry for, and plenty of Baton Rouge to get to know.

Starting a new business just months after Katrina has been a blur for the restaurateurs. Neither gets out much, although the parish’s 2 a.m. closing laws—a pet peeve for both—has them getting to sleep earlier. They have made friends at the A.C. Lewis YMCA and Our Lady of Mercy church, networked with LSU and Southern University coaches and taken in the funk at SoGo Live.

“People have been really warm,” Butler says. “They say, ‘We’re sorry about the circumstances, but we’re glad you’re here. Don’t leave.’ I meet someone who tells me that everyday.”

–JEFF ROEDEL

VINCENT BUTLER, co-owner, Vincent’s City Club

Age: 52

Hometown: New Orleans.

Where do you live: Off Government Street.

Home: Own a house.

Why did you move here: Katrina.

What surprised you about Baton Rouge: Crawfish is a lot bigger here, whereas in New Orleans it was the ribs. It’s a college town, and we’re not used to that.

What organizations have you joined: YMCA.

Church: Our Lady of Mercy on Marquette Avenue.

Local sports or recreation: Tailgating, working out.

Favorite Baton Rouge restaurant: Don’t eat out much other than Vincent’s.

Favorite bar or club: No time to go out.

Favorite activity in Baton Rouge: High school sporting events, LSU and Southern football.

Your new pet peeve in Baton Rouge: They shut us down at 2 a.m.

HENRY AUGUSTUS, co-owner Vincent’s City Club

Age: 51

Hometown: New Orleans.

First impression of Baton Rouge: Here’s a city that’s growing up really fast, that’s ready.

How long have you been in Baton Rouge: Since the day before Katrina hit. I came to Baton Rouge to stay with some family, and I haven’t left.

Where do you live: On Ardenwood Drive.

Home: Own a house.

What surprised you about Baton Rouge: That folks go out to eat a lot. The people are a little more open-minded than I thought they would be.

What organizations have you joined: None yet. I stay pretty busy.

Church: None.

Local sports or recreation: None. I rarely have the time.

Favorite Baton Rouge restaurant: Champps.

Favorite bar or club: SoGo.

Favorite activity in Baton Rouge: High school sporting events, LSU and Southern football. I rent a lot of DVDs. The musical version of Les Miserables was really good.

Your new pet peeve in Baton Rouge: The 2 a.m. closing time. I think it promotes more reckless drinking because people think they have to “beat the clock.”

The nicest thing a Baton Rougean has done for you: When I first arrived lots of people offered to help me find a place to stay and to find clothes. It’s great that Mayor Holden comes in to the restaurant all the time. He gets the ribs.

SAIWARD PHARR, Auburn Ala.

SOUTHEASTERN FLAVOR

Maybe it was only a matter of time before Saiward Pharr wound up in Baton Rouge: She’s a true child of the Southeastern Conference.

She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia, a Master’s degree from Auburn University and recently moved to Baton Rouge to pursue a Ph.D. in English at LSU. So, where does her heart truly lie? Well, unfortunately it’s with the Dawgs. But don’t worry — she hates Auburn.

Until going off to college at age 18, Pharr lived in the same house in Atlanta all her life. In fact, her parents still live there. She moved to Baton Rouge in July with her boyfriend, who is also working on a Ph.D. in English from LSU. They share a two-bedroom house near campus and, despite incredibly busy academic schedules and meager graduate student budgets, enjoy getting out of the house to do a number of “free” activities around the city. Their favorites include taking long walks and watching the sunset over the Mississippi River.

“Growing up in what was loosely called the Eastern seaboard, the Mississippi River was always this mythological geographic feature that was over there,” she says gesturing. “It was far away. It was the divide of the country. It just had this immense importance that was so completely removed from me. I watch the sunset and think ‘Man, I am standing on the banks of the Mississippi,’ and I get chills.”

Pharr, whose first name comes from the main character in a play, The Awakening Land, which her parents went to see on their first date, has fallen in love with the city and looks forward to making it her home for the next five to six years while she finishes her studies. Does she want to make Baton Rouge her permanent home?

“I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to it,” she says. “We’ll see.”

—SARAH YOUNG

Age: 25

Hometown: Atlanta.

What was your first impression: I was really glad to see a proper downtown. Auburn didn’t have that.

What part of town do you live in: Near LSU’s South Gates.

Apartment or house, own or rent: I rent a house.

Why did you move here: To get my Ph.D. in English from LSU.

What has surprised you? It’s not a full-blown college town. It’s more of a college town within a city. There’s definitely a differentiation between the campus and the rest of the city. I like that.

What organizations have you joined: A running group and Baton Rouge Sushi Tour.

Church: I’d like to start attending the Buddhist temple but just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Local sports or recreation: I joined a running group, and they’ve talked me into training for my first half-marathon.

Your favorite place to eat in Baton Rouge: It’s kind of hard on a graduate school budget to go out to eat, but I love sushi and can walk to the Drunken Fish. I’m a big fan of The Chimes, I have to admit.

Your favorite bar or club: My boyfriend’s sister took us to Ivar’s. The English department seems to be pretty fond of Chelsea’s. I kind of go where everyone else is going.

Your favorite activity here: Tailgating.

Found any good shortcuts: I live between Parker and Boyd. On Boyd at Highland you can only turn right, so between 4 and 6 p.m. it’s bumper-to-bumper. I’ve found that if I go down Parker and cross Parker to the city lake, I can skip all of LSU Boulevard and the Boyd traffic. It’s probably no big secret, but I was excited when I discovered that.

What’s your new pet peeve in Baton Rouge: I call it country driving in the city. No one uses their blinker; people back up in the middle of the street. I bite my fingernails a lot while driving around this town.

What’s the nicest thing a Baton Rouge person has done for you: It’s a toss-up between this woman in my running group who has really encouraged me in my running and a neighbor who told me that one of the serial killer victims was abducted from the house two doors down from me. I don’t know if this qualifies as nice or not, but she meant it in a nice way.

What’s the rudest thing someone has said or done to you: Nothing I can think of, but I’m sure after LSU plays Georgia next year, I will have a long list. I do hate the tiger bait chant. I could do without that.

REGGIE AND DEBRA TONGUE, Seattle

LIFE AFTER THE LEAGUE

It sounds glamorous—being the wife of an NFL player. But for Debra Tongue, the big house and fast lifestyle just couldn’t compete with the down-home, Southern hospitality of Baton Rouge.

Now that his playing days are behind him, Reggie Tongue is settling nicely into Baton Rouge life as well.

Debra, a graduate of Glen Oaks High, met Reggie in February 1998 in Kansas City while he was playing for the Chiefs. She was working as a trainer in a gym where he used to play basketball, and mutual friends introduced the two.

Reggie, a 1996 second-round draft pick out of Oregon State University, played for the Chiefs until 2000. That’s when the Seattle Seahawks picked up his contract, so the Tongues moved to Redmond, Wash.

But the NFL is a fickle fraternity, and in 2004 Reggie was signed as a free agent to the New York Jets.

Then he injured his knee in a late season game in 2005 while playing for the Oakland Raiders.

The constant moving was taking its toll, and the Tongues didn’t want to uproot the family yet again. So they kept their house in Redmond while Reggie traveled across the country for practices and games.

In May 2005, Debra opened Purple Rocks, a contemporary women’s boutique, in a Redmond area mall. Six months later, she opened a second Purple Rocks, this time in town in a loft at Circa 1857 on Government Street.

She then found herself traveling between Redmond and Baton Rouge to run her two stores.

When Reggie’s short stint with the Raiders ended last year and he wasn’t picked up for the 2006 season, the couple started seriously considering settling in Baton Rouge.

“Our son was getting ready to start kindergarten, Reggie was in a position where he was healing and looking at possible retirement, and the lease on my other store in Washington was up in September, so there were a lot of things that fell into place to make this move possible,” Debra said. “I really felt like I would be happier here, like we could be happier here.”

Now Debra has only the Baton Rouge location of Purple Rocks, and the couple has settled into their new home. Their young son has started kindergarten at a local Montessori school.

Debra also has two grown children. Her daughter now also lives in Baton Rouge, and her son plans to move here after finishing the semester in community college in Washington.

Reggie—still a free agent who remains fit and ready should he be called back into the league—finds himself some much-cherished free time. More than anything he’s enjoying the mild Louisiana weather.

“I’m really a tank top and shorts kind of guy,” he said. “I love it down here. Our life has a chance to slow down and become simpler. I’m really looking forward to that.”

—SARAH YOUNG

Age: Reggie is 33, Debra is 37

Hometown: Hers is Baton Rouge; his is Annapolis, Md.

Reggie’s first impression of Baton Rouge: “It has a very rustic quality. I’ve lived a lot of places where most of the buildings were new. Baton Rouge definitely looks older, but I like that.”

What part of town do you live: Siegen and Perkins area.

Why did you move here: Reggie’s contract with the Oakland Raiders was up, as was the lease on Debra’s boutique in Redmond, Wash.

What organizations have you joined: Debra is a member of the Mid City Merchants and participates in White Light Night.

Local sports or recreation: Both are health conscious and enjoy going to the LSU lakes as a family. Reggie races remote-controlled cars at a track in Lafayette.

Favorite place to eat: Boutin’s.

Favorite activity: Going to the movies as a family at Tinseltown.

What’s the nicest thing a Baton Rouge person has done for you: Neighbors brought over cookies and brownies when they moved in.

What’s the rudest thing someone has said or done: Nothing, everybody has been so nice.

ALEX HUIS IN'T VELD, the Netherlands

It’s the shoes that give him away.

As Alex Huis in’t veld sips his latte in jeans and a stripped dress shirt, his deep-red Italian leather square toe shoes scream that he’s no Louisiana boy.

Or maybe it’s his Dutch accent.

In fact, he comes from more than 4,800 miles away—that’s 7,724 kilometers—from a place called Denbosch, the Netherlands.

Huis in’t veld works for the chemical company De Nederlandse Staatmijnen, which translates into Dutch State Mines, or DSM. The company, which has a Baton Rouge office and a plant in New Orleans, operates all over the globe, and about every three years Huis in’t veld moves to a new location. His other stop so far has been Indonesia.

When the company told him he would be moving to the United States, he thought he would be in a famous city like New York or Chicago. “When they said you have to go to Baton Rouge, I had to look it up on the map because I had never heard of it.”

But now he is enjoying the city more than he expected. “There were not the best stories I heard about Baton Rouge—a lot of people, not a lot to do.”

By his fourth month in the capital, Huis in’t veld was making the most of it.

“You have to make your own life,” he says.

He has toured the local art scene, visited plenty of local restaurants and joined the Bravehearts Over-30 men’s soccer team through the Baton Rouge Soccer Association.

He has compiled a list of locations he still wants to see, including “typical Louisiana things” like our famous oak and cyprus trees, the swamps and a Southern plantation.

Huis in’t veld says the one thing he can’t really do here is walk. “Maybe in a park or something, but not in the city itself,” he says. “I’m used to walking places.”

This spread-out, car-geared city of drive-thru windows and ATMs surprised him. In Europe, especially in the Netherlands, cities are more concentrated around downtowns.

For all the grumbling we do, drivers here are far less aggressive than drivers back home, he says.

“It is unbelievable how polite people are,” he says. “When you merge into a lane, they wait for you.”

—AMANDA JOHNSON

Age: 30

Hometown: Denbosch, the Netherlands

First impression of Baton Rouge: I like it very much. There are very friendly people here. And there is a lot to do.

How long have you been in BR? Three months.

Where do you live? Rent a company-owned apartment in the Essen and Bluebonnet area.

Why did you move here: His employer, DSM.

What surprised you the most: American football. The first time I went to the LSU Tigers it was really fun.

What organizations have you joined: a futbol (soccer) team, the Bravehearts, in the Baton Rouge Soccer Association.

Church: No.

Favorite place to eat in BR: Sullivans, Parrain’s, Flemings.

Favorite bar or club: The Station, Roux House.

Favorite activity in BR: Hearing live music, Friday Live after Five, and soccer. “It’s called futbol, by the way.”

New pet peeve in BR: Nothing really. The city surprised me in a very positive way. There are a lot of really friendly people.

What’s the nicest thing a Baton Rouge person has done for you: Getting to go to the LSU football game.

What’s the rudest thing someone has said or done: At one party a guy, I think I was talking to his girlfriend or something and he was a little bit jealous, I don’t know. He started a conversation, ‘yeah the Dutch, you cannot trust the Dutch.’ I heard the conversation and I went over and asked what was going on. That was really the only thing, and it was nothing.