When you’re starting a new business, every consultant will tell you, rule number one is – make sure your business solves a problem that people want solved. That last part of the sentence is considered to be vital. If you don’t have a product that people are looking for, you’ll never sell it and your business will never work.

Then, of course, there’s the exception to the rule. For example, dehydrated cocktail mixes that allow you to make a delicious bar-quality cocktail on top of a mountain, on a desert island, or in a foreign country where they don’t know how to make a good Old Fashioned.

Those dehydrated cocktail mixes are made right here in Lafayette. They’re called Leisuremann’s Cocktail Mixes. You might not have woken up this morning, or any morning, thinking, “I wonder where I could buy a dehydrated cocktail mix to take on vacation,” but it’s one of those strange things that once you know about it, you wonder why nobody thought of it before.

Cliff Couvillon

One of the people who did think of it is the co-owner of Leisuremann’s Cocktail Mixes, Cliff Couvillion.

Besides dehydrated cocktail mixes, there are many other things in life you can live without. They include gelato, sorbetto, coffee, wine, croissants, gluten-free baked goods, and brunch.

Liz Payne

However, if you decide your life would be a lot better if you didn’t live without any of those things, you can find them all in downtown Lafayette at Liz Payne’s stylishly re-vamped café and wine bar, Carpe Diem.

Aileen Bennett

This show was recorded live over lunch at Chopsticks restaurant in Lafayette. Photos by Lucius Fontenot.