It’s not been a good summer for downtown restaurants. Victor’s, a new Greek-inspired bistro shut down after only a few months in business, Café Bonjour turned off the java taps in June, and now a beloved plate-lunch institution, T-Coon's, has closed its doors. Business owner Terry Majors is reluctant to discuss why he chose to end a tradition of fried rabbit, meatball stew, stellar rice dressing and crisp catfish, but there were indications that business was slowing down when T-Coon's stopped serving breakfast several months ago. Majors says he and his wife Torrie want to thank Lafayette for three and a half years of wonderful memories.
Restaurateur David Billeaud first opened T-Coon's on Jefferson Street in 1993. He leased the space from downtown landlord Kathy Ashworth. In 2002, Billeaud opened a second location in a strip mall at the intersection of Pinhook and Kaliste Saloom. Majors took over the downtown business and lease in 2005, maintaining the menu and recipes Billeaud perfected. The restaurant is filled with local memorabilia; the sound track for the Cajun and Creole cooking was a nonstop two-step of Cajun and zydeco. Over the years T-Coon's wooden booths saw business deals sealed, political campaigns launched, weekly French-language lunches, and habitués who could tell the day of the week by what was on the menu. As word gets out, the loss is affecting plate lunch junkies and smothered rabbit fans from across Acadiana, who claim to be losing their appetites. Major’s last word on the closure is a recommendation to head over to the T-Coon's on Pinhook and “eat with David.”
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
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.
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