How The Chimes became a game-day and everyday favorite in Baton Rouge and beyond

Taste of history: Each month across our 20th year, 225 will revisit restaurants from our past coverage. From Capital Region classics and award-winners to trendsetters and hidden gems, these businesses have helped shape our dining culture.

What makes an LSU game-day legend?

A great beer selection? Sure. Proximity to Tiger Stadium? A given. A handful of Baton Rouge establishments share these qualities, but it’s hard to remember a time around campus B.C.—that’s “Before Chimes,” of course.

The Chimes Restaurant & Tap Room predates the birth of most LSU undergrads, and many Tiger fans have grown up stopping by on trips to Baton Rouge. Scooping up the eatery’s famous spinach and artichoke dip with a fried bow tie pasta chip has become a tradition akin to throwing the football on the LSU Parade Ground or visiting Mike the Tiger.

Today, The Chimes serves 28,000 spinach and artichoke dips and 18,000 gallons of beer each year. It’s cemented itself as a local legend, as prophesied by the dining room’s iconic football team-goes-ancient-Greek mural.

Longtime owners Michael Ryan and the late Tim Hood took over the business three years after its opening in 1983.

“They didn’t anticipate that nearly 40 years later that would look like multiple locations and a much larger footprint than when they started,” manager Jim Howard says.

The North Gates corner fixture, which once served as a drug store, is today one of four locations across Louisiana—with an additional Baton Rouge location, The Chimes East, opening in 2005 on Coursey Boulevard. A Covington location followed in the 2010s, and, most recently, The Chimes opened its Lafayette outpost in 2023.

The key to success? Doing things “the hard way.”

The kitchen relies on scratch-cooking and hand-battering, according to management. And its practices and relaxed-meets-quality vibes have been carried over to other institutions like Parrain’s Seafood Restaurant, which Hood, Ryan and John D’Antoni opened in 2001. Other local restaurateurs found their footing at The Chimes, including Paul Dupré, owner of Elsie’s Plate & Pie in Mid City.

Dupré, who served as kitchen manager at both Baton Rouge locations, says his 10 years at The Chimes helped inform his menu and management style at Elsie’s.

“Some of the philosophies there—like teaching people beyond just getting trained when you first start and the constant evolution of every person getting better—I always really appreciated that and tried to keep that aspect within my own business,” Dupré says.

In August 2019, The Chimes’ original location on Highland Road unveiled its new rooftop expansion, featuring an open-air patio and bar. The addition was and remains a high point for the business, giving fans yet another inviting pub-themed space to grab a local beer, check the score and enjoy some Lousiana fare.

But the excitement was halted in the middle of the rooftop’s inaugural college baseball season.

While COVID-19 was shuttering businesses across the Capital Region, The Chimes pivoted to takeout orders, a trend they recognized and bought into even before pandemic restrictions.

Their adaptability, along with the team’s commitment to fans’ experience, even at home, carried the business through.

“We were able to weather that storm because our staff made an effort every day to show up and make the best of a bad situation,” Howard says.

The Chimes’ longstanding success can be reduced to its dynamic ability to be just what you need it to be—on any random Tuesday afternoon or Super Bowl Sunday, for a pile of boudin balls or one of the 92 beers and wines on tap.

And after plenty of winning seasons, The Chimes keeps fans coming back for more.

This article was originally published in the August 2025 issue of 225 magazine.