Adam Daigle, Business Editor of the Acadiana Advocate, discusses the biggest business news of 2024 in this episode of Discover Lafayette.

We want to thank the Advocate for highlighting our latest podcast each week in their online Business Section. You can subscribe online at theadvocate.com/newsletters to keep up with our community’s latest business headlines.

The # 1 story in 2024, without a doubt, is the announcement that Buc’ees will be opening at the northeast corner of Louisiana Avenue and Interstate 10. Rumored for years, this will be a major draw for motorists traveling along I-10, and most of the sales taxes paid will be collected from out-of-towners. When people travel, Buc-ees is a destination as well as a place to fill up the tank. The new site is projected to be a 74,000-square-foot building, complete with gas pumps and nearly 700 parking spaces, and the store is estimated to be a 13-month build, opening during the 2025 holiday season.

The closest Buc-ees to Lafayette is either Alabama or Baytown, TX, so Lafayette can anticipate a heavily-trafficked spot for people looking for that golden Buc-ees’ experience.

I talked to a convenience store analyst, and he said, “Buc’ees takes everything you hate about traveling, removes it, and replaces it with what you love about traveling. You want to stop there because you’ll never wait in line for a gas pump. You want to go there because you know the bathroom is clean. You want to go there because they’ve got unique snacks and not Cheetos that every other place has. You get a brisket sandwich or a hot dog with the gas station. They’ve just flipped the whole concept on its head.”

There’s a Tax-Increment Financing (“TIF”) district already in place that dates back to when Stirling Properties originally built the Target Shopping Center across I-10 from where Buc-ees will be located. At the time, there was no water or sewer lines and the project was only feasible with this type of government assistance to cover the massive infrastructure needs. The TIF was paid off quicker than anticipated and is still in play today. To accommodate the Buc-ee’s deal, a subdistrict was created, which will tax 2% of all sales, including gasoline purchases. While some question the need for TIF districts, this is a trend that has been taking place all across the U. S., and it is a negotiating tool that jurisdictions utilize to attract big business such as Buc-ees, Bass Pro, and other large retailers. As Adam says, “That is what you do to land the big boys. You got to pay for it.”

The # 2 story is the passing of Richard Zuschlag, Chairman and CEO of Acadian Companies. When he started his business in the early 70s with Roland Dugas and Richard Sturlese, funeral homes were dispatched to pick up people who were ill, and they were transported in a hearse. This was the era prior to ambulances and the trio identified a huge gap in the healthcare market.

Zuschlag was the driving force in the company’s growth, and he was also literally a driver of an ambulance in the early days. He attended all of the police jury and city council meetings to meet with people and get agreements signed. Acadian Ambulance would hold membership drives that ran on television, where people paid a fee to ensure that an ambulance would pick them up. Over the years, Zuschlag became the principal behind Acadian and the company experience extraordinary growth, opening up it National EMS Academy, Acadian Total Security, Air Med, Safety Management Systems, Executive Aircraft Charter Service, and Acadian Health (home healthcare services.)

*The late Richard Zuschlag, who founded Acadian Ambulance and served as Chairman and CEO of Acadian Companies.*

Today, Acadian Companies is an employee-owned company with 5200 employees in four states. Zuschlag’s memory lives on through his family, and his son, Blaise, serves as Executive V. P. and Chief Administrative Officer.

The # 3 story of the year is the opening of Superior Grill at 2320 Kaliste Saloom Road. The restaurant is wildly successful, with the positive reaction of people being off the charts.

The core of Lafayette’s activity has been gravitation to South Lafayette, in the area of River Ranch, Youngsville, and Broussard. People meet to eat and spend lots of their money. Outside investors have see the strength of our market, and where the money and demand is. When Topgolf came in, according to Adam, “That put Lafayette on people’s radar. It’s the strength of our market, and people from the outside are putting up their radar.”

Superior Grill spared no expense in detail when designing and building the restaurant. Old brick, electric doors from Turkey, Mexican tile patterns, exquisite glass. The site is in a prime location where the former Randol’s Restaurant was situated, and is now a dominant force in our restaurant market.

The #4 story is the $19 million, full-service, 83 room boutique hotel to be built downtown at the former Don’s Seafood location. Sans Souci Properties is the owner and managed by Lafayette business owners Gus Rezende, Ryan Pecot, BJ Crist and John Peterson. Adam says it is significant to have local people invest that much money in a project of this magnitude, and to do so with our town’s best interest in mind. The project is slated to begin in the first quarter of 2025, and will be built by the Thrash Group out of Hattiesburg, MS which has experience with this kind of unique hotel concept. The hotel will feature a restaurant space, an outdoor pool and 2,500-square-foot event spaces.

The #5 story is Waitr filing for bankruptcy. Waitr was Lafayette’s shining story of success in entrepreneurship. Adam explained in these type of startups, the goal is to invest, hit success within eight years, and then to sell, to cash out, “Where some big shot comes along and says, ‘I’ll pay you $300 million for it. Everybody gets paid and more. Then they go on to something else.” But Waitr did it in only five years and was a huge success when it was managed locally. It was out in front of the trend of DoorDash.

The turning point for Waitr was when it purchased Bite Squad. The exiting local private board advised against the purchase, but the incoming public board wanted to grow the company’s national footprint fast. It turned out that Bite Squad was hemorrhaging money, $3 million per month, in a declining market share. Adam shared that Joe Stough, an angel investor who was on the private Waitr board, gave him one of his best quotes of the year. “It was like attaching an anchor to the company.” Waitr had been doing fine before the Bite Squad purchase, but things slowly unraveled and now Waitr is shut down in bankruptcy.

The silver lining is that all the people who were at Waitr went through an incredible learning process, gathering institutional knowledge of startups and how to how to make things work. They stayed in Lafayette, and one of them, Joe Stough is now a principal at FlyGuys, which specializes in contract drone operations worldwide.

For our Business Person of the Year, Adam selected John Tomassini, owner and proprietor of Jet Coffee, a rising local star in the coffee market. John played baseball at Oregon State, and “when his sister married a Louisiana guy she said, you got to come down here, it’s great. So he did.” Tommasini had a vision to start a coffee shop and his first was down the road in Maurice. Next came Broussard, then Ambassador Town Center by Dave & Busters with its rooftop lookout, and now its newest location on Johnston Street in the former Johnson Street Java locale.

Jet Coffee owner John Tommasini and manager Gabby Constant.

Jet Coffee appeals to the young adult crowd which craves its energy drinks. The incredible part of his story is that he had to elbow his way into this market as a guy who’s not from here. His manager, Gabby Constant, shared that when she met him for an interview, he talked about Jet Coffee as if it had been open for ten years; he was had that much of a vision. Customer service comes first and Tommasini promotes from within, hiring people from the ground up and developing them into management talent. Jet even has its own roasting facility in Lafayette. We congratulate John Tommasini on his success and wish him the best as Jet Coffee continues its growth trajectory.

Adam and the Acadiana Advocate run their Power Poll once a month. People can sign up to answer questions on their opinions about the latest news. For more information, visit https://www.powerpoll.com/la/lafayette.

As we wound down our conversation, Adam shared a few other tidbits of developments. Starbucks is moving into the former Capital One building in the Stirling Shopping Center on Louisiana Avenue. The third Aldi store in Lafayette will be built across the street from Walmart on Ambassador Caffery. Amazon quietly expanded their employee base in Carencro to 1400. They originally projected 500 people. And, movie theaters are hanging in there with their $5 cup of Skittles and $8 popcorn offering families and friends the whole big screen experience where you can pop your feet up. Stuller is still the biggest non-healthcare employer in Lafayette.

We thank Adam Daigle for his commitment to delivering the best business news! We look forward to a prosperous 2025. Happy Holidays!

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