New Orleans-style restaurant planned for O’Neal Lane

Katrina Smith hopes to relocate her New Orleans Breakfast and Pancake House restaurant from Gretna to Baton Rouge by the end of the summer. Smith says she’s finalizing a deal to locate the restaurant, which will be renamed New Orleans Breakfast and Grill, in a space inside the Carriage Crossing complex on O’Neal Lane, near the intersection at George O’Neal Road.

“We want to put it in an area where there are not many New Orleans-style restaurants,” says Smith, who relocated to Baton Rouge from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. “We want to bring a real taste of New Orleans to the good people of Baton Rouge for welcoming so many of us here. We want to bring them foods here that they’d otherwise have to drive 75 miles for.”

Among the offerings at the Baton Rouge location, Smith says, will be beignets made according to the authentic Café Du Monde recipe. Unlike the current Gretna restaurant, the Baton Rouge location will serve dinner. It will feature seating for at least 100, she says. After the Baton Rouge restaurant has opened, the Gretna location will eventually close.—Steve Sanoski