Jamaican dream

They sheepishly admit that the idea was hatched from a late-1990s hangover-induced eating frenzy while they were college students on vacation in Jamaica.

But Baton Rougeans Kelly Ponder and Michael Buchert never imagined their vision would result in The Rum House, a thriving “Caribbean Taqueria” on trendy and busy Magazine Street in New Orleans.

Think islands. Think eclectic menu. Think rum. Lots of rum.

And those tacos, with delectable fillings from fish to curried lamb, jerk chicken, scallops and pulled pork.

“We started doing well right away,” Ponder says.

How well?

Reviewers at urbanspoon.com usually gush. Here’s a typical post by a neighborhood resident: “This place can and often does get totally packed. I’ve walked by here on Friday nights where not only is the restaurant totally full, but you can’t even get a spot at the bar.”

Ponder says many people say he and Buchert got lucky. “But the fact is, this place was vacant, and you couldn’t get a liquor license in this neighborhood. And we were the only ones crazy enough to attempt it. It was very risky.”

Buchert, 34, was a year ahead of Ponder at Catholic High, and they didn’t become friends until LSU. After college, Ponder tried his hand outside the culinary world, first with former U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin in Washington, D.C. “I decided I hated politics after a year,” he says.

Sales, which he tried next, wasn’t his calling, either.

Meanwhile, Buchert was working in restaurants, from George’s to Pave to Serrano’s Salsa Co. near campus. He moved to Serrano’s New Orleans location and met his wife Katie, who pushed him to finish his degree. In class, he wrote a business plan for a Jamaican taqueria. “I got a B,” he recalls.

The plot thickened in 2008, while Buchert was managing Serrano’s. Ponder’s wife Jene was almost due with their first child, and he got laid off from his sales job.

“I made a pact with myself that I wasn’t going to work for anybody else,” Ponder says.

He was going to open an online tailgating business, but Buchert called him with the idea for a restaurant.

Lenders “had no idea what the hell a Caribbean taqueria was,” Buchert says. “But Kelly was the first guy who ever wanted to try it with me.”

And so they did.

“He had the very pregnant wife,” Buchert says, “and I had the very anxious CPA wife.”

But somehow they got the startup money, putting their houses on the line. They did all the renovation labor themselves, and finally a liquor license came through. Although the air-conditioning didn’t cut it when they first opened, the place rocked from the start.

They got a huge boost from an appearance on a Food Network show that aired in Canada and attracted foreign diners asking for Buchert and Ponder by name.

That was June 23, 2009. “It was really good opening night,” Ponder says. “It was a sweat box. We needed about seven more tons of air-conditioning in here. We got box fans.”

Laughing, Buchert says, “Kelly was going around telling people we were recreating the island atmosphere.”

The menu is extensive, and the choices range from discounts on Taco Tuesdays to regular drinks to exotic, high-end rum that goes for $100 a shot.

Like most restaurateurs, the pair is thinking of expansion, hopefully with a Rum House or something similar in Baton Rouge.

“We’d like to think we re-invented or re-energized the specialty taco,” Buchert says.

Might as well bring it home.