Kevin Landry, proprietor of Café Lola, joins Discover Lafayette in special partnership with Eat Lafayette and Lafayette Travel. Eat Lafayette is a yearlong celebration of Lafayette's locally owned restaurants. Café Lola was opened at 1155 Coolidge in the Oil Center in April 2002 by Mark and Jill Balser. Their focus was on fresh, wholesome, colorful, and delicious ingredients sourced locally. They offered a simple menu that worked through repeated trial and error as they found out what the customers consistently liked. Kevin took over the helm of Café Lola in February 2021 and has intentionally kept things just the same, because it works.! Café Lola is open for lunch, 10:30 AM - 2 PM. They can seat about 60 patrons at any time and about 70% of customers are dine-in and pick up. Door Dash is a popular option. They have a steady clientele of pharmaceutical/medical/business customers who order for meetings; call or order online ahead one day for these items. This is a great gig for single moms who need to drop off their children for school in the morning and then pick them up after school. Kevin is proud of his staff and depends on them for their understanding of customers' needs as they order meals daily. "The menu is a guide but you can substitute anything to ge what you really want." He trusts the staff and stays out of their way. "Our food is fresh. We make our bread daily. My motto is, 'Fresh ingredients, fast service, and friendly faces. We are not fast food. Our menu is a guide but you can substitute anything." In the ensuring years since opening, the restaurant earned and maintained a popular reputation for its great lunch time menu selection of sandwiches, soups, and salads. Even today, you know you are always going to have plenty of delicious options for high-quality, fresh food with great service. And, the brownies are always a hit! While Kevin shares that prices on the menu went up recently against his instincts, it was done to meet the inflationary impact on the cost of fresh lettuce and other items. At one point, romaine lettuce soared in price from $29 to $80 per order. "We held on as long as we could to raise prices. It's bad that we are not the gas pump and have the flexibility to raise and lower prices quickly. We have no choice but to wait it out and adjust accordingly." Pictured above are Lynn and Kevin Landry. Fan favorites are the TLC Sandwich, composed of Turkey, Lettuce, Provolone cheese, sprouts, cucumber, tomatoes, and avocado, as well as the Shrimp wrap. "People like wraps," says Kevin. At a point early on during the pandemic, the original owners, the Balsers, were empty nesters and found themselves ready to retire and live at their vacation home right outside of Park City, Utah. Kevin took over the helm of Café Lola in February 2021 when he and his wife were looking to buy a sustainable business venture; the opportunity fell in his lap and was the right fit. He secured financing and used his business acumen to maintain what was already a successful business. Soups are a popular option. Pictured is Café Lola's Seafood bisque. Many people wait for the daily soup specials, which include Potato Soup on Wednesday, Broccoli and Cheese on Thursday, and Seafood Bisque on Fridays. " We enter the Eat Lafayette soup competition all the time and usually win. One time we came in second." Kevin hasn't changed a thing on the menu since he purchased the restaurant and shares how when he talked to customers and polled people about Café Lola, saying he couldn't "find a hole in the restaurant. Everything worked from an investment standpoint as well as the quality of food and service that Café Lola offered day in and day out." The only downside he found was that people might have forgotten the restaurant was there in the Oil Center. That could be fixed. One of Kevin's favorite meals is the Cobb Salad. He is an intermittent faster who eats around 10...
