Baton Rouge's #1 lifestyle magazine since 2005

What’s New

Romanian-born LCI graduate Bogdan Mocanu is firing up Baton Rouge’s food truck scene with his rolling pizza restaurant, Dolce Vita, a truck custom-built to accommodate a wood-fired pizza oven inside.

Mocanu, who worked under Chef John Besh in New Orleans, is meticulous about flavor profiles and ingredients, hand picking the freshest stuff he can find and often creating unique blends of spices and cheeses. Buffalo mozzarella, Parmigiano-Reggiano, fresh basil, imported Italian salamis and prosciutto—it all makes a tremendous difference in the finished product. “Where I come from, we don’t have much, we don’t have the supermarkets,” says Mocanu. “But what we have, it’s all fresh and it’s all high-quality. That’s what I’m trying to recreate here.” Mocanu uses a high-gluten dough that he makes fresh every day to create the crispy, bubbly New York-style crust, cooked directly on the brick stone of the truck’s oven. facebook.com/woodfiredpizzabr

In his years of operating Apple accessories kiosks at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge and Lakeside Shopping Center in Metairie, there was, without fail, one question Shawn Wilson would get the most. Customers would reach into their pockets or their handbags, pull out a gadget and ask, “Can y’all fix this?”

Seeing the potential market for repairing Apple products instead of simply accessorizing them, Wilson took the plunge on his first retail operation and opened iSuppy on Perkins Road near College Drive. The Southdowns-area store repairs iPhones, iPads and iPods, and offers a range of accessories from protective cases to earbuds.

“Most of my business experience has been through learning as I go,” says the 30-year-old entrepreneur. “I don’t have a business degree, but I’ve learned that hands on learning is the best way to do it—at least, for me.”