Many of us have dreams of quitting the nine-to-five and doing what we really want. For many different reasons, that mostly remains a dream. Although it’s often said in sarcasm, Peter’s guests on Out to Lunch – Mark Boudreaux, Janie Varisco, and Skylar Manuel – are in fact living the dream. Their stories are very different,…

In Acadiana we’re quick to acknowledge the incredible talents of our Cajun and Zydeco musicians. Which is pretty natural. After all, if they’re not going to come from Acadiana, where are they going to come from? In other styles of music and the arts where we don’t have the field all to ourselves, the interesting…

Acadiana is known for entertainment. If you don’t play in a band yourself, someone in your family almost certainly does.  There’s music everywhere – from small house parties to giant festivals. But there’s more to life than music. For example, comedy.  There’s a genre of Cajun comedy, typified by our friend Boudreaux. Boudreaux usually appears to…

The conventional wisdom about starting a new business is, target a specific market. Dustin Melancon and his wife Jennifer decided to throw that idea out the window. Instead they set out to manufacture a product that can be enjoyed by Sophisticates and Punks. What product could satisfy that wide of a target market? Cupcakes. Sophi…

In the United States people congregate for entertainment in buildings, like multiplex movie theaters, or dedicated chunks of real estate like Broadway in New York, and Disney World in Florida. Here in Acadiana, we have a parallel universe of popular entertainment. None of it involves massive permanent construction. It requires only an open field or a…

The saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” assumes a democracy of things. Meaning every object, from a speck of sand to a skyscraper, has the potential for beauty, if we decide it’s beautiful. Even if you believe that to be true, you have to admit that some objects are just more obviously beautiful…

Out to Lunch host Peter Ricchiuti shows up to Social on Johnston Street with nothing but a good idea: find guests at the restaurant, have lunch and talk business. What transpires is both a testament to the quality of Social’s diners and employees and the ready availability of characters and talent in every part of…

The Independent and Abiz publisher Cherry Fisher May sits in for Peter Ricchiuti on this edition of Out to Lunch Acadiana. Cherry kicks off by noting the old adage in property development is “Land is valuable because they’re not making any more of it,” whereas in reality, in the United States there’s around 80,000 square…

We go online for just about everything today. News, weather, music, banking, clothes, shoes, books – pretty much everything you’re looking for, you just have to Google it and it will pop up. For example, try Googling “Golf balls.” You probably won’t be surprised that no matter where you are in the world the first thing…

If you grew up around Lafayette and Lake Charles and you’re a certain age, you might know Don Begneaud. If you’ve got kids – and you leave out the part where he dropped out of college – Don Beagneaud’s story is inspirational. Don started out as a welder, riding a bicycle to classes while a…