After more than 30 years in business, including nearly 18 at his current location on Airline Highway in north Baton Rouge, Bayou Café and Catering owner Frank Brown is planning to retire and transform his popular neighborhood eatery into a social enterprise that will train at-risk youth in the culinary arts as well as the restaurant and catering business.
The venture, called Bayou Kitchen, is being modeled after the successful Liberty’s Kitchen in New Orleans, founded more than a decade ago and has since trained hundreds of young people at two cafes serving breakfast, lunch and weekend brunch.
Brown, who has long been active in trying to revitalize north Baton Rouge and has hosted meetings of the Baton Rouge North Economic Development District at the restaurant, says the transition from Bayou Café to Bayou Kitchen should be relatively seamless when it comes to fruition, hopefully sometime mid year. All the furniture, fixtures and equipment in the 4,000-square-foot restaurant will remain in place, and Bayou Kitchen will lease everything from Brown.
The restaurant’s existing employees will also remain, but Bayou Kitchen will hire a new executive chef to replace Brown and will begin training young people as line cooks, hosts and servers.
Brown says the nonprofit organization he formed is already working with community groups in north Baton Rouge to identify young people who could benefit from the services Bayou Kitchen will be able to provide
“There is a great need to bring in these young people who are at risk, have dropped out of school, coming out of the juvenile justice system,” Brown says. “Already we have a lot of groups and church organizations that are looking to partner with us.”
Brown, who has been in the restaurant business since 1986 and opened Bayou Café at 5068 Airline Highway in 2000, says he came up with the idea for Bayou Kitchen after learning of the success of Liberty’s Kitchen. He says he is ready to retire so he can spend more time with his grandchildren, but he also wants to leave a meaningful legacy and create something that could help others.
“I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a long time,” he says. “We’ve gotten organized and put all the pieces in place. Now it’s time to execute and make it happen.”
—Stephanie Riegel
