Savor the local food flavor during EatLafayette

June 16, 2007
From the Daily Advertiser, Lafayette, LA - www.theadvertiser.com

Savor the local food flavor during EatLafayette
Three-year-old campaign promotes locally owned eateries
Bob Moser
bmoser@theadvertiser.com

Between sugarcane fields on the edge of a South College Road industrial park, Nimbeaux's Restaurant can be so hard to find that even the owners gave up on directions when it opened seven years ago. They could have used the EatLafayette campaign then, a grassroots effort that began in 2005 with 19 local restaurants trying to draw attention away from better-known big chains. Now in its third year, the campaign will promote 32 restaurants during the next eight weeks in newspaper advertisements and 800 radio spots.

In time, owner Jim "Nimbeaux" Babbin generated his own unique buzz, postingbillboards around Lafayette that dared drivers to find his Cajun seafood with "Can you find us???" printed in place of driving directions.

"Now every weekend I get people who come in and say 'I found you, I found you!,' " Babbin said. "It's become a challenge. ... Some people pay $100,000 for an idea that works as well as that one." It's ironic that Babbin joined EatLafayette for this summer's campaign. He'll finally have some help with those driving directions.

"EatLafayette gives people awareness," he said. "We don't have the money to spend on advertising like a big chain does to bombard the market. "I think people are really interested in eating at the mom and pops. ... When you come in here, you'll see it's like being in our house. I got model airplanes up on the wall, baskets from my wife's collection and family photos."

There are about 400 fast-food and full-service restaurants in Lafayette Parish, according to the latest statistics from ReferenceUSA.com, via the Lafayette Economic Development Authority.

The number of chain versus family-owned restaurants is hard to measure, though EatLafayette found about 95 to invite for this summer's campaign, said Gerald Breaux, executive director of Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission. "The main reason people come to Lafayette is the food, music and the culture," he said. "Not that there's anything wrong with the wonderful chain restaurants we have in our area, but if we didn't have that local flavor, we'd be a vanilla, white-bread city."

Chain restaurants often have a leg up in advertising support and staff retention because they can offer more benefits, said Charlie Goodson, owner of Charley Gs and co-chair of EatLafayette. "Part of what we're doing is joining together, and with small dollars making an impact on the marketing area," he said. "The community needs the big restaurants for their tax revenue, but it's our feeling that a community is reflected by where it shops and eats."

The eight-week campaign will try to steer tourists toward family-owned restaurants while they visit. But the main target is to reconnect locals with restaurants with which they could build long-term loyalty. "Our other mission is to remind local citizens how important our local restaurants are to making the area unique," Breaux said. "We never want to take that for granted."

Restaurants pay $250 to join the campaign, which pays for advertising, including www.eatlafayette.com. Some funding comes from LCVC as well. Babbin hopes the campaign will draw diners to Nimbeaux's long enough to see his planes and family photos on the wall.

Once they taste his wife's fried catfish, the job's done. "What we offer is unique, nostalgic to a point," he said. "When we first opened, we hired a chef, and it didn't fit with what we wanted to do. Now, my wife does all the cooking and does it according to the way we grew up doing it."


The EatLafayette campaign runs Monday through Aug. 19.
For a list of all 32 restaurants and their specials, go to
www.eatlafayette.com.