A Baton Rouge area restaurant with several locations will soon have one in Lafayette.
The Jambalaya Shoppe, which opened about 25 years ago in Gonzales, will soon be serving Cajun Country its jambalaya, crawfish pie and filé gumbo.
No, really.
Those three dishes aren’t just the subjects of a classic Hank Williams song. They’re also combo No. 1 on The Jambalaya Shoppe’s menu.
“The restaurant is just a good, simple concept for Lafayette,” says local investor Michael Topham. “First and foremost, there really is no place in town that has jambalaya on a daily basis. And really, this is just a great, fast-casual place with good, wholesome, home-cooked food.”
Topham, a certified public accountant with a restaurant background, contacted the restaurant’s founder Cheryl Fontenot to learn more about franchising opportunities earlier this summer.
Though there are seven locations in the Baton Rouge area and another location opening soon in Houma, the Lafayette location will be the first franchise for The Jambalaya Shoppe.
“This location will be the first that’s owned outside of family and friends,” Fontenot says. “It’s a new thing. We’ve only known the owners of this franchise for a month and a half or so, but they’re good people. They’re Cajun people, and we like that. They’re family now.”
Fontenot never planned on opening a jambalaya shop.
She and her husband were struggling to feed their five sons during the oil field downturn in the late 1980s. Both lost their finance jobs, and she had to resort to cleaning houses.
One day, she found herself lost while driving and became overwhelmed. She prayed, asking for a better way to support her family.
That’s when the concept for her restaurant was born.
The original location of The Jambalaya Shoppe is still open in Gonzales, the Jambalaya Capital of the World.
Fontenot focused on cooking home-cooked meals that could be ordered and eaten quickly for working parents who didn’t have time to cook every evening for their families.
Customers can order individual, family or catering sizes at the restaurants, which offer dine-in, takeout and drive-thru services.
The lease agreement for Lafayette’s first location is still being negotiated, so the location is not being announced.
Topham hopes to have the restaurant open by mid-November.
“Our game plan right now is to have five stores in the Lafayette area in the next 2-and-a-half years,” Topham says.
In addition to locations in the central and south sides of Lafayette, Topham is planning to open restaurants in Youngsville, Broussard and Carencro.
Although the restaurant serves pastalaya (a jambalaya made with pasta instead of rice), gumbo, boudin, crawfish pies, side items and daily lunch specials, The Jambalaya Shoppe is best known for its jambalaya, of course.
“My favorite item on the menu would be the jambalaya,” Fontenot says. “I like jambalaya the right way, the real way. I can eat it every day.”
What is the right, or real, way?
A brown jambalaya made with rice, green onions, water, salt, pepper and house-smoked sausage.
Learn more about The Jambalaya Shoppe by visiting thejambalayashoppe.com.
