In her latest column, Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel revisits the story of restaurateur Frank Brown and the Bayou Kitchen—a nonprofit Brown is launching to train at-risk young people in the restaurant business while teaching them valuable life skills.
“Unlike so many stories I write, which elicit a snarky if not downright visceral response from readers, this one struck a pleasantly positive chord, especially with people who know Brown personally,” Riegel writes. “One wrote that he is a well-respected community leader. Another said his restaurant is one of the best-kept secrets in north Baton Rouge.”
Brown, as Riegel initially detailed in Daily Report, is modeling Bayou Kitchen after Liberty’s Kitchen in New Orleans, where thousands of young people over the past decade have learned life skills and how to cook, serve and run a restaurant.
The positive response to the story prompted Riegel to seek out Brown at his Bayou Café and Catering restaurant in north Baton Rouge. Describing the 70-year-old restaurateur as likable, friendly, down to earth and insightful about the problems facing his city and community, she writes Brown isn’t launching a political career or trying to make a name for himself. He’s creating Bayou Kitchen because he sees the need around him and wants to leverage what resources he has to make a difference.
“You have kids out here in Glen Oaks, Brookstown, Zion City, Scotlandville—just like my kids—but they don’t have parents to really push them,” he says. “No one is reaching back and trying to pull them out of this. They have the capability, but they’re not given the opportunity.”
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