A new dining option is coming to downtown Baton Rouge in place of long-time staple, The Harrington’s Cafe.
In August, Cafe Mimi will open at 329 Florida St.
The new restaurant is a joint venture from relatives Julie and Dave Carlson and Steven and Sally Banh, whom last week closed on the purchase of the 17-year-old Harrington’s Cafe from owners Craig and Lacey Harrington.
Renovations on the restaurant’s interior will begin Monday, Julie Carlson says. Cafe Mimi will be a bit of Harrington’s with an Asian flare.
“It’s a different option,” says Carlson, who is Vietnamese-American.
She and her husband, Dave, brother, Steven, and sister-in-law, Sally, will work closely with the Harringtons as they get their new restaurant up and running. Carlson says there are even plans to revitalize and grow Harrington’s reception, rehearsal dinners and catering business.
“We’re going to completely remodel the dining room,” Craig Harrington says. “We’re going to still have some of the old favorites of Harrington’s and do some new things, like a have a little Asian flare to the menu.”
There will be many healthier options, he adds.
The Harrington’s Cafe officially closed two weeks ago. Craig Harrington says he’s blessed for the run that Harrington’s had downtown. The area has great for business, he says, adding that it was time for a change.
“I’m going to be with them in the beginning to help them get started and get to know everybody,” he says.
Cafe Mimi is the culmination of a difficult year for the Carlsons and Banhs. Julie originally planned to open a franchise of a Nashville-based juice bar with her husband in Towne Center, and Steven, who owned and operated a convenience store and gas station with his wife in Denham Springs, was going to help the couple with financing.
Then the flood occurred.
Steven and Sally Banh lost their business, and the plans changed. Instead of opening the juice bar, the Carlsons agreed to go into business with the Banhs.
Together, they decided to build a restaurant on the gas station site, but the permitting process proved to be a headache. And though they had leveled the gas station, they couldn’t break ground on a new restaurant until sometime in 2018.
Meanwhile, the Banhs hadn’t had income since before the flood, Julie Carlson says. Then in May, the family lost their 12-year-old niece, Megan, to a brain AVM malformation, which can lead to bleeding in the brain. The seventh-grader was affectionately called “Mimi” by Julie Carlson’s sons.
Cafe Mimi is a way to honor Megan, Julie Carlson says, adding that she wants to add a mural inside the restaurant to honor her niece.
The restaurant is expected to open later this summer. And when it does, the restaurant will serve both breakfast and lunch. It also will be open nights and weekends too, Harrington adds.
“It’s a new and exciting restaurant coming to downtown,” he says.
—Alexandria Burris
