Popular New Orleans restaurant Drago’s Seafood is no longer negotiating to open a Lafayette location in the Parc Lafayette development, meaning a Baton Rouge location could open before a Lafayette one, The Advertiser reports.
Tommy Cvitanovich, majority owner of Drago’s, tells The Advertiser he’s confident there will be no more negotiations on the La Marquise building in the Parc Lafayette development, even though the restaurant had spent nearly $50,000 on architectural plans for the space.
Drago’s owners announced earlier this month the deal with Parc Lafayette was off because they would be unable to close on the La Marquise building by Monday to ensure they could open the restaurant before Thanksgiving.
Chad Cooley of AWH Partners, the investment and management company helping Drago’s open new locations, says he and Parc Lafayette developer Glenn Stewart “just weren’t able to come to terms on the acquisition” of the La Marquise building.
Drago’s is considering building a Baton Rouge location on a roughly 3.2-acre site on Highland Road in front of the Country Club of Louisiana that has been sold to a New Orleans investor for $2.85 million. In March, Drago’s Seafood spokesman Ron St. Pierre told Daily Report “a Baton Rouge location is in the not too distant future.”
At that time, St. Pierre confirmed Drago’s is in “the very early stages of negotiations” to secure an agreement for a restaurant at the Highland Road spot, adding Drago’s currently is not considering any other sites in Baton Rouge.
