A former New Orleans restaurateur is opening a Creole-style restaurant in the Jefferson Village Shopping Center at 7970 Jefferson Hwy.
He is one of two new restaurant tenants moving into the center, while an existing tenant—a nail salon—is planning to expand.
Russell Davis is the New Orleans restaurateur. He’s actually a New England native, who learned the restaurant business in the 1990s working for the Brennan family in New Orleans, first at Commander’s Palace and later at several of Ralph Brennan’s restaurants in the French Quarter.
In the early 2000s, Davis moved to California to open his own restaurant. A few years later, he returned to New Orleans, where he co-owned and operated a popular Uptown seafood restaurant, The Saltwater Grill.
Davis says his new Baton Rouge establishment will be called Eliza, after his daughter’s middle name, and will feature a menu of familiar Louisiana favorites, with fresh seafood dishes, gumbos, soups and salads. He plans to eventually serve Sunday brunch in an atmosphere that he describes as “a casual neighborhood place with a really good feel.”
Davis is leasing the 1,850-square-foot space on the western end of the shopping center that has been vacant since a WOW Café closed several years ago. The space is equipped with a restaurant kitchen. He is currently making cosmetic renovations and hopes to be open by late fall.
“Baton Rouge, from a restaurant perspective, has developed so much in recent years and is evolving in a great way,” says Davis, who relocated here with his family nine months ago and knows the city well because it is home to his in-laws. “The restaurant scene gets more vibrant every week.”
Two spaces down in the shopping center, a Texas-based Italian-style restaurant chain is planning to take over 4,500 of the 6,000 square feet previously occupied by a Louis DeAngelo’s Casual Italian Dining restaurant, which closed in 2015. Real estate broker Mark Hebert, who handles leasing for the shopping center, says he has inked a letter of intent with the restaurant company, which he declines to identify until the lease is signed. He says the Jefferson Highway location will be the company’s first in Louisiana.
Having two restaurants in the same small strip center should benefit both establishments because of the synergy it creates, according to Davis.
“The more restaurants you have in close proximity the better because you become a dining destination,” he says.
Also planned for the shopping center is an expansion of long-time tenant Rio Nails, which is taking over the space adjacent to its existing salon that was vacated earlier this year when Red Stick Spice company relocated to 660 Jefferson Hwy.
Jefferson Village was developed by Jerry Pearson and is owned by the Coleman Family Partnership.
—Stephanie Riegel
