Discover Lafayette Lafayette Travel: Celebrating 20 Years of Eat Lafayette & the Culinary Culture of Acadiana
Discover Lafayette welcomes Lafayette Convention & Visitors Commission’s CEO Ben Berthelot and Jesse Guidry, Vice President of Communications, two of the most passionate advocates for Lafayette’s cultural and culinary identity.
“You don’t have to go to a museum to experience our culture – you can be immersed in it. You can eat it, dance with it, and live it.”
Together, they explore the evolution of the Eat Lafayette campaign, which began over 20 years ago under the tutelage of Charlie Goodson of Cafe Vermilionville. Origniating with just 18 restaurants participating, Eat Lafayette has grown into a powerful initiative celebrating the unique flavors of Acadiana. The conversation dives deep into the importance of supporting locally owned restaurants, especially in a changing economic and tourism landscape.
Ben and Jesse share how Lafayette has become a destination for food lovers, and how LCVC continues to adapt, from creating searchable dining districts throughout Lafayette Parish on Eat Lafayette’s website, to launching an upcoming Eat Lafayette mobile app expected to launch this summer that will spotlight local eateries and experiences for locals and tourists alike to rely upon. “It will be a one stop shop for all locally owned restaurants. It’s an initiative that we’re going to be launching by way of an app that’s layered with some other things that we do with Lafayette Travel. But the goal would be when you download this app, you will have a direct source to locally owned restaurants in Lafayette.”
Lafayette Travel has established new collaborations such as the Acadiana Eats Festival to support our local restauranteurs. It also engages in year-round culinary promotions as a way to sustain mom-and-pop businesses as cultural ambassadors, as they are keepers of our local tradition.
“Partnering with Acadiana Eats Festival is a great benefit in terms of promotion for local restaurants as well as that festival. The restaurants are able to sell their food and make money. We’re trying to find different ways to partner with what is already existing in the community and how we can lift those things up. We’re going to put our force behind this and our marketing, and leverage KLFY’s presence and Gerald Gruening who is known for his passion for locally owned restaurants. That’s just one example of some new things that we’re doing, partnering with different festivals and other events throughout the year, and developing the new app.”
Key Topics Covered:
- The origin and growth of Eat Lafayette
- Why now is a critical time to support local restaurants
- How Lafayette’s culinary identity contributes to tourism and economic development
- The creation of a new app to help users discover local dining by location, cuisine, and occasion
- Strategies for year-round restaurant promotion
- Challenges facing restaurateurs today: staffing, rising food costs, and competition
- The power of community collaboration through events like Festival International
- Lafayette’s potential as a top U.S. destination
- Fun personal insights from Ben and Jesse, including hobbies like home cooking, dance, and coaching
Visit https://www.lafayettetravel.com/food-drink/local-restaurants/ for a listing of all locally-owned, Louisiana-owned, and national favority restaurants in our community.
Notable Quotes:
Ben Berthelot: “One of my favorite quotes is by a colleague in Irving, Texas, which has really grown. She says if you build a place that people want to visit, you’ll build a place that people want to live. And if you build a place where people want to live, you’ll build a place where business wants to be. And if you build a place where business wants to be, then you’re back to a place where people wamt to visit. It is a cycle. That’s how I think and how I want to lead our organization. Tourism is economic development. Get someone here once, and they fall in love with Lafayette.”
Jesse Guidry: “There is no more important time than now to support our locally owned restaurants. And that’s how Eat Lafayette started over 20 years ago. It was driven by the restaurants saying they needed help during the summertime. So it started with 18 restaurants in a two week campaign, and grew to a three month campaign, with over 200 restaurants at one point, with the whole emphasis of being where am I going to go eat tonight? And we want you to go eat at a locally owned restaurant. Support our mom and pops, who are the reason that we were named Tastiest Town of the South, the best food city in the United States, and all of those awards that we’ve gotten over the years.”
Links & Resources:
- 🌐 LafayetteTravel.com
- 🍽️ EatLafayette.com (Restaurant signup + directory)
- 📲 Follow on social: @LafayetteTravel | @EatLafayette
- 🎶 Check out the Lafayette Weekly Live Music Calendar
Thanks to our guests Ben Berthelot, Jesse Guidry and the entire Lafayette Travel team for their continued support of Discover Lafayette and for keeping Lafayette’s spirit alive – one plate at a time!