Thibodaux’s Off the Hook restaurant to open first Baton Rouge location
Off the Hook is opening a Baton Rouge location later this year, in the former Raising Cane’s building on Corporate Boulevard.
The Thibodaux seafood restaurant recently signed a five-year lease with property landlord College Retail LLC, with the option for three, five-year renewals. Co-owner Paxton Moreaux expects to open the restaurant within the next six months.
It will mark the first Baton Rouge location for Off the Hook, which specializes in fried seafood, gumbo, etouffee and hamburgers. It first opened in Thibodaux in 2012, followed by a Houma location in 2015. Over the past year, the concept has expanded to the greater Baton Rouge market, with a Gonzales restaurant opening last June and a Prairieville restaurant slated to open in mid-2022. Read on for the May 21 Daily Report story.
|
|
|
Plans scrapped for Baton Rouge-to-beach air shuttle
Direct air service Southeast Beach Express has canceled its shuttles from Atlanta and Baton Rouge into Gulf Shores, Alabama, due to low passenger bookings. The seasonal air service was scheduled to begin its routes June 3, with flights on Thursdays and Mondays from Atlanta Peachtree Dekalb Airport and Baton Rouge Metro Airport into Gulf Shores’ Jack Edwards Airport.
“Unfortunately, we encountered two major hurdles we didn’t anticipate when we began our planning for the air service: A significant inventory of beach lodging unavailable for booking due to storm damage, and a national shortage of rental cars due to the pandemic,” says air service founder Jay Taffet in a prepared statement. “These two factors made it very difficult to induce drivers to fly, as car travel allows much more schedule flexibility and, obviously, built-in ground transportation at the destination.”
When Southeast Beach Express announced its plans in April, the $490 short flights were planned to run through Oct. 3. Read on for the May 21 Daily Report story.
|
|
|
Chef Brandon’s Boxes looking to expand
Stay-at-home orders made Chef Brandon LaBorde’s meal delivery service, Chef Brandon’s Boxes, a great option for families who wanted healthy meals but didn’t want to cook and didn’t want to leave their homes. At the peak of the pandemic, LaBorde was filling about 30-50 orders a week or a total of 200-250 boxes, he says.
Now, LaBorde says, business has dropped a bit, but he mainly attributes the decrease in orders to families going on summer vacation, not necessarily the loosening of pandemic guidelines making people more comfortable dining out.
LaBorde doesn’t only do meal plans for families. He also caters events like weddings and business luncheons, and he’s the official caterer for Beauregard Gallery and Bistro in downtown Baton Rouge. Going forward, LaBorde says he’d like to focus more on that partnership and do more business in the downtown area. He says he would even like to start selling food out of the Beauregard space. Read on for the May 25 Daily Report story. To keep up with Baton Rouge business and politics, subscribe to the free Daily Report e-newsletter here.