The Big Cheezy pioneers cheese-focused menu in Baton Rouge

The crowd that usually gathers at The Big Cheezy trailer on a Friday night is colorful: sorority sisters teetering on 5-inch heels, bros in snapbacks, bouncers taking a break. Tigerland nights are the bread and butter of these grilled cheese experts. But we’re here on a Sunday afternoon, where things are a little quieter.

Big Cheezy partner Jason Harbison had graduated law school and was working a corporate job when he decided to jump in the cheese game. His college roommate Thomas Jacobs had founded The Big Cheezy, the first restaurant in New Orleans to focus solely on grilled cheese and mac and cheese. When asked what he would do with a million dollars or one more good partner, Thomas would always say a Baton Rouge location of The Big Cheezy. Harbison, an LSU law alum, took him up on it.

So, in early March, Harbison parked Big Cheezy’s first Baton Rouge location just off Nicholson in the parking lot of Fred’s Bar and let the people come. The trailer does big business on party nights—Thursday through Saturday—and opens for lunch on Sundays. The menu’s best seller is the classic Mac ‘n Cheezy, a sandwich made with cheddar on white bread and stuffed with four-cheese bacon mac and cheese. Other loaded sandwiches pair the mac with roast beef, alligator and crawfish sausage, and smoked turkey.

“Everything’s sourced here locally,” Harbison says. “Our sausage is made by Creole Country in New Orleans. Our roast beef debris is cooked in house. Our mac and cheese is cooked in house. Our [tomato basil] soup is cooked in house. We slice our own cheese. We found Leidenheimer Bread Company in New Orleans. We’re not serving people Bunny bread with a struggle slice. Our ingredients matter.”

Though hungry and partying college students make up a big part of Big Cheezy’s clientele, the Tigerland-averse of the city can still get their hands on a sandwich. The Big Cheezy makes many of its sales through Waitr delivery, and Harbison is eyeing other locations around town for a weekday trailer parking spot that would be more centrally located for both walkup and Waitr customers. The trailer will also be expanding the menu to include more favorites from the original Big Cheezy locations.

That’s the beauty of a trailer over a brick-and-mortar, Harbison says: the chance to have flexibility, to test out different neighborhoods, to take what’s been proven to work in a restaurant and find a way to bring it to as many people as possible. He says he wants to open as many Big Cheezy locations as the Baton Rouge market can support.

The Big Cheezy trailer is located at 1098 Bob Petit Blvd. and open 6 p.m.-2 a.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. Keep an eye on the trailer’s social media, though—you never know when or where it might pop up.