The owners of The Royal Standard are teaming up with Go YaYa’s Crepes to open a bistro and coffee shop in the store’s flagship location at 16016 Perkins Road.
The new eatery will be called The Crown: A Royal Bistro, though it will likely be known as The Crown Bistro, and will be open for lunch daily and for brunch on the weekends. It will also serve coffee, pastries and some prepared dishes during the afternoon hours.
Mark Peirce, who owns The Royal Standard with his wife, Krista Peirce, says the couple has been interested in opening a restaurant in their gifts and home accessories shop for several years, as they’ve observed changes in the retail sector and the need to provide customers with more than just merchandise.
“People used to go out to shop and ate at home. Now, they go out to eat and shop at home,” he says. “So to get the customer shopping in today’s world it has to be more about the experience. We want to round out the shopping experience for our customers.”
The catalyst for acting on the restaurant idea was the August flood. The store took in three feet of water during last summer’s historic disaster, and after deciding to renovate and reopen the Peirces also chose to go ahead with the bistro.
“The flood is really one of the best things that ever happened to us,” he says. “We have a beautiful new store, a great new café opening and some great things happening that never would have been done.”
The Crown Bistro will be about 1,500 square feet and will be located within the existing Royal Standard store in a space that previously housed company-owned merchandise. The Peirces are handling the build-out of the space, and Go YaYa’s owner and chef Kevin Black is supplying his own equipment and inventory.
For Black, whose popular creperie is located in the Main Street Market downtown, the opportunity to open his own restaurant was too good to pass up. He says it will serve dishes that cater to the store’s mostly female clientele—soups, salads, sandwiches and healthier dishes as well as crepes. It will also serve coffee and tea from French Truck Coffees, with whom he is partnering.
“I was intrigued with the concept when they approached me” shortly before Christmas, he says. “They thought I would be a good fit for it, and it all came together relatively quickly.”
Black, a graduate of the Louisiana Culinary Institute, will continue to operate his downtown Go Ya Ya’s location.
The new bistro is scheduled to open in late March.
—Stephanie Riegel
