Restaurant owner lost everything, and found himself

Describe your business.

Zydeco Po-Boys is a restaurant offering southwest Louisiana style po’boy sandwiches, gumbo and red beans and rice. We also have beer and Louisiana daiquiris.

Is there a market for po’boys in Las Vegas?

Las Vegas is an adventurous culinary city. It’s a city that likes to try new things and experience new flavors, and authentic, quality food is appreciated here. There were people here just waiting for Zydeco to open because it’s food they already have experienced and love. There also have been a lot of customers who are experiencing Cajun cuisine for the first time and discovering they love it.

My first experiences in the kitchen were watching my mama prepare some of the dishes I serve at Zydeco Po-Boys, and I think that authenticity and tradition comes through in our food.

What is the hardest part about doing business in Las Vegas?

Difficulty in finding certain authentic Cajun ingredients. Things like the type of quality, affordable seafood you can get easily on the Louisiana coast are obviously much more difficult to source in the desert.

What is the best part about doing business here?

Our tourist traffic allows me to introduce authentic Cajun food to people from across the globe, and that’s pretty inspiring and fulfilling.

You lost your home, businesses and livelihood to Hurricane Rita in 2005. What happened?

I had a 6,000-square-foot commercial laundry that I lived above, and a 10,000-square-foot property I was refurbishing into a new commercial laundry facility. Hurricane Rita lifted the 6,000-square-foot building and left behind only a cement slab. The 10,000-square-foot facility was reduced to a shell and filled with debris. All of the work I put into that new facility literally was washed away. My former business was destroyed, so I had a choice — try to rebuild with limited insurance funds or start over and do something completely new.

That’s when I decided to follow my lifelong passion for food and go to culinary school. I enrolled at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, then moved to Las Vegas in 2007 for an externship at Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House. After that, I worked at Emeril’s Table 10 in the Venetian, then Marche Bacchus, then I started working for a small catering business and doing personal chef work. That led me to Downtown Project, which is my partner in Zydeco Po-Boys.

What did that experience teach you?

When I owned the laundry, it was all about work and money. The more money I made, the more I spent, and the more things I had. I had personal relationships, but business always came first and the people in my life came second. What I’ve learned from losing everything is that it’s not about how much money you can make, and it’s not about the amount of stuff in your life; it’s about the quality in your life. It’s about being happy in what you do for a living and enjoying life, it’s about creating memories. Money makes life easier, and it gives you security, but it doesn’t make life happier. I run Zydeco differently than the laundry because I love this business. Another thing I learned: Have a good insurance agent.