There was no one before him, and it will be virtually impossible to ever match his success in the local restaurant business. Revered La Fonda founder Leebob Cox, 78, was laid to rest Saturday after a long battle with health problems, including a second stroke in 2002. Cox died peacefully at his residence on Wednesday, Feb. 27.
“I don’t know who else could go ahead of him,” says longtime La Fonda customer Teemie Landry, a patron whose loyalty inspired one of the painted caricatures in the 50-year-old Johnston Street restaurant -- as famed for its potent margaritas as its Tex-Mex fare. “He was hands-on. When you walked in the door, Leebob was there. He greeted you when you walked in and gave you a ticket to go get your margarita.”
La Fonda has survived many turbulent times in the local economy, not to mention an onslaught of competition that hasn't yet let up, and today remains one of the city’s most spirited dining spots. Its longtime management and staff continue to uphold the tradition, but for some time to come patrons will expect to be greeted by the familiar face and will long for the quiet, accommodating demeanor of Leebob Cox. “There was always an overall concern that everyone was made happy,” Landry says. “He knew everyone’s name and was always glad to see you.”
Is it a crime for citizens to photograph, video, or take notes of a police officer in the line of duty, or a right protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Locally, such activity, as witnessed recently, will at the very least result in a night spent behind bars.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
Episcopal School of Acadiana’s Dr. Joshua Caffery, chair of the school’s English Department, is headed to Washington, D.C., and the Library of Congress as the latest winner of the Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
There was no one before him, and it will be virtually impossible to ever match his success in the local restaurant business. Revered La Fonda founder Leebob Cox, 78, was laid to rest Saturday after a long battle with health problems, including a second stroke in 2002. Cox died peacefully at his residence on Wednesday, Feb. 27. 
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