We launched Out to Lunch Acadiana in July 2015. When we went on the air, KRVS in Lafayette was – as it still is – a mostly music station. We didn’t know if we’d have a single listener to a show about Acadiana business.

Even knowing that, our very first guests, Matt Stuller from Stuller Inc and Anya Burgess from Sola Violins, were gracious enough to come on the show.  

In the intervening years, Out to Lunch has gotten pretty popular on KRVS. And podcasting has gone mainstream. Now we have a large radio and podcast audience, with listeners in Acadiana, across the country, and around the world. So, given that there is a pretty good chance, wherever you are, that you didn’t hear Anya Burgess or Matt Stuller on our initial broadcast, we’re going to rectify that. 

Though he’s too modest to say it himself, Matt Stuller is arguably Acadiana’s most successful business person. Here are a few facts to back that up. Stuller Incorporated makes 200,000 pieces of jewelry for over 40,000 jewelry outlets worldwide. It’s one of the largest jewelry manufacturing and distributing firms in the United States, with facilities in Bangkok, Barcelona, and 3 plants in North America, including here in Lafayette where there are over one thousand employees. Stuller Inc is a huge and hugely successful company that Matt has grown from its infancy in the early 1970’s. It’s an absolute pleasure to welcome Matt back to out to Lunch Acadiana.

Anya Burgess is a fiddle player who started out fixing her own and other people’s violins, on her dining room table. That eventually turned into a business when Anya opened her storefront, Sola Violins, in downtown Lafayette in 2014. As a musician, Anya has been nominated for a Grammy. Twice. Once each with both of her bands, Bonsoir Catin and The Magnolia Sisters.

Anya and Matt are two very different but equally unique contributors to both the culture and economy of Acadiana.

Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot.