It’s Acadiana: Out To Lunch

Hosted ByChristiaan Mader

OUT TO LUNCH finds journalist Christiaan Mader conducting business Acadiana style: over lunch. Each week Christiaan invites guests from Acadiana's business community to join him. Beyond the foundations of the Acadiana economy - oil, cuisine, music - there is a vast network of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and even some of the country's largest companies who call Acadiana home. Out to Lunch is the cafeteria of the wider Acadiana business community. You can also hear the show on KRVS 88.7FM.

Elemental – Out to Lunch – It’s Acadiana

Acadiana is changing. Yes, we still jealously guard our traditions and our culture, but we also embrace change. We’re happy to have the fastest internet in the country. We’re happy to be home to some very cool tech businesses. And we’re happy to be able to go downtown to a coffee shop like Reve, which is as hip as any place in any major American City.

But none of this fell out of the sky. Somebody had to build our high-speed internet. Somebody had to attract companies to relocate or start up here. And somebody had to create the modern, hip space that became Reve Coffee on Jefferson. That person is Greg Walls.

Greg Walls

Greg is a contractor. A hands-on property developer who uses his background in architecture as a jumping off point. A place to start a job, not hand off a bunch of plans to someone else. Greg picks up a hammer more often than he picks up a pencil. And all of his renovations bear the stamp of a talented designer who can combine traditional Acadiana with modern Acadiana.

Randy Leblanc

Blending the building and design traditions of our past, while embracing the future, is also the province of Randy LeBlanc. Like Greg, Randy doesn’t just design stuff. He makes it. Out of metal. Randy’s company, Metal Head, makes architectural metalwork like wrought iron gates, fences, railings, balconies, and other metal fixtures – both artistic and functional – that you find in both homes and commercial spaces.

It doesn’t get much more elemental than wood or metal.

Eric Murrell, Greg Walls, Randy Leblanc, Aileen Bennett

Photos at Marcello’s Wine Market by Gwen Aucoin.