Catering Cajun helping in disaster relief

Wayne Stabiler is perhaps most known in Baton Rouge for his string of restaurants, which include two locations of the Italian restaurant The Little Village, Le Creolé and Stab’s Steak & Seafood in Central. However, Stabiler has been making a name for himself across the country with Catering Cajun.

Though his catering company started as just a food vendor in 1992, Catering Cajun began to help with a bigger range of disaster relief and recovery efforts around eight years ago.

“We were doing a lot of catering during tornadoes, ice storms and hurricanes,” Stabiler says. “At the time Hurricane Katrina hit, a lot of our customers started pushing for us to do more than catering.”

Stabiler then turned his food business into a full-on disaster recovery service, providing housing, a place to shower and do laundry and other equipment for those working at areas in need. His biggest clients are utility companies everywhere from New York to Texas. He’s not just bringing a couple 18 wheelers of food, he says, Stabiler is in charge of the logistics of more than 80 trailers driving across the country to these locations.

“It’s an undertaking,” he says. “You lean on a lot of people. Trust is the key.”

For the first three days of a disaster relief operation, Stabiler sets up in his logistics trailer in Baton Rouge to stay connected with the utility company. He says he doesn’t sleep at all for those first 72 hours. Before any storm approaches, Stabiler’s crew has to be available within 24 hours. When called, a convoy with all the needed items drives to the disaster site. Once at the site, Cajun Catering starts with the set up, strategically placing tents around the area. Then, the food prep comes.

“You may be feeding a thousand people at each camp site,” he says. “You may feed eight-to-nine thousand people per day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Already this year, Catering Cajun has worked in two disaster relief efforts with the ice storms here and in Georgia. In the past, Stabiler has sent manpower to work in Virginia, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Ohio. He’s worked with efforts in Hurricanes Isaac, Rita, Katrina and Sandy.

“We work them all,” he says. “We never run out of supplies. Your initial truck has to have three days worth of supplies, no matter what.”

For food, he says his team offers almost a dozen choices for breakfast, including biscuits and gravy, pancakes, waffles, meats and eggs cooked three different ways. The team then packs boxed lunches for the utility workers. Around 7 p.m., the workers return to the campsite to eat their choice between two entrees.

“It’s the only thing that those guys have to look forward to,” he says.

The challenge for Stabiler is being flexible. While working from his logistics trailer, he has to know if and when he can send supplies and men to another camp.

“It’s all about planning,” he says. “We have to stay intact. We know our employees and who we’re working with.”