The Ultimate Superbowl Showdown, Sunday February 7!

There’s a showdown brewing, folks. It’s been brewing for a long, long time, and things have finally come to a head. It’s David versus Goliath. It’s Good versus Evil. And once again, I’m the underdog, and all the odds are stacked against me.

Here’s the thing you don’t know: it has nothing to do with football. At least, not the sport of football, anyway.

Sunday January 24. About 10 PM. With an intense Minnesota/New Orleans playoff game gone into overtime, I watched a rapid succession of heartstopping plays lead up to a Hail Mary fieldgoal. The kick was good. And I knew, even as the deafening roar erupted inside of Papa Roux (the restaurant, not the person) that I wouldn’t be sleeping again until April (late March at the earliest).

Still sitting, watching the cheers of the people around me, I began making a mental list of the actions and the tight timeline needed in order to use this gift from God to my fullest advantage. God doesn’t care about the outcome of a football game; I get that. I believe He does care about the opportunities that outcome can bring to my family and others. I believe I’m obligated to do something beneficial with it, and I’m trying my best.

The very first action: call Zapp’s Potato Chips. Bright and early Monday morning, I called Zapp’s Potato Chips and ordered 10 cases of Who Dat! chips. I was so excited! I had fretted all Sunday night that I wouldn’t be able to get these, but the girl assured me they had plenty of Who Dat! on hand, because they saw the opportunity coming, and planned accordingly. Zapp’s is a fairly small company local to the New Orleans area. As such, they probably figured the game outcome was a gift from God, and they had an obligation to do something beneficial with it. What a bunch of nutjobs.

Anywho. What followed was a frantic week of planning and running and video production and marketing and coordinating, increased lunch traffic, and very little sleep. Part of the planning was the creation of a large display of Who Dat! chips, balanced by an equally Blue display. It was going to be incredibly incredible.

Five minutes after I posted the first version of the party commercial, a fellow chef called me, advising me of the potential Cease and Desist letter the NFL™ would be sending (thank you, Scott Tope!). Apparently he went through this a few years back, when Indy made it to the bowl (neither the terms “Indy” nor “bowl” are trademarked, so I think I can say that). He said my commercial used a trademarked term (it means “little horse”. No, not like a Native American name, I mean literally a young horse.) Also, although the words were not together, I had actually used the words “s*per” and “b*wl” in a context that the NFL™ would claim was infringement. Mind you, the claim doesn’t have to be valid. It only has to be made. I pulled the video, causing much confusion amidst the broken links my customers were clicking and emailing. I spent the night tweaking it (once again, in lieu of sleeping) and re-released it the next day.

Of course, all the television coverage and newspaper coverage and radio coverage says the Cajun restaurants in town are having S*per B*wl parties, cheering on the C*lts and the S*ints. It’s not true, I tell you! I swear to you, we’re doing no such trademark-infringing thing! We’re simply wearing lots of nondescript blue and black, with non-infringing phrases cheering on Indianapolis and New Orleans as they compete in a fun sporting event on multiple TVs! Ask any fan of Papa Roux and they’ll tell you, the real excitement will be the All-You-Can-Eat Po-Boy And Gumbo Buffet!

Anyhow, I thought I was safe. I thought I had covered every base, covered my butt and everyone else’s too, and was actually breathing a sigh of relief.

Whoops. I sighed prematurely. I should have known better. Thursday morning, Zapp’s called back. They sent out other flavors as a replacement, because they actually didn’t have the Who Dat! chips at all, and wouldn’t be producing any more before the big day.

For an entire day I was livid with Zapp’s. I actually said three-letter-acronyms starting with W and T (I can’t use the third letter here, as it’s trademarked by Sesame Street and they’re demanding royalties). How can the situation go from “oh we have plenty of those, because we planned ahead” to “um… whoops, we checked again and we have none at all, and can’t have any more made”?!?!

Bless her heart, the girl on the phone at Zapp’s didn’t even shift the blame. She let me be irate with her and with Zapp’s. She didn’t let on what I would soon find out through the news, that Zapp’s is now obviously sitting on a warehouse FULL of Who Dat! chips. Hand-crafted, painstakingly and lovingly made gourmet potato chips, that will now all go in the trash because of a Cease and Desist letter from the NFL™, over the use of a phrase that pre-dates the organization now claiming to own it!

I’m no longer angry with Zapp’s, obviously. They won’t admit it, but it’s obvious this was not a slip-up in their planning or marketing. I plan to vent fully on the entire industry of the NFL™. Greedy so-and-so’s, all of them.

Monday morning, please call Zapp’s Potato Chips at 1-800-HOT-CHIP and give them your love and support. Buy products from them. Buy lots and lots of products from them. You’ll love everything they have, it’s all awesome. This small business, like all small businesses, cannot afford to take the kind of hit they are about to take by throwing thousands of cases of Who Dat! chips in the garbage.

David versus Goliath, y’all. The NFL™ is a bunch of conniving, lying, thieving jerks. This organization obviously hates America and the very beliefs that make her a great country. It hates the working man, and it hates the places the working man likes to hang out. It hates the bars where you’ll talk football with your friends. It hates the greasy spoon where you’ll make football smalltalk with the waitresses. Please do not support the NFL™.Watch the football, obviously, but avoid actions that compensate these jerks financially. Avoid officially licensed products. Most importantly, support every small business you can, every time you can. Start with Zapp’s and Papa Roux, but don’t stop there. If we don’t fight back, Goliath wins.

Oh, and one more request: When this blog entry comes to the attention of the conniving, lying, thieving bastards at the NFL™, they will attempt to shut down my plans for next week. I’ve not violated a single trademark, not used a single bit of copyrighted material in any way. And yet, I have no doubts, they will send Vinnie to break my kneecaps even as I make gumbo roux on Saturday.

When that happens, I may be forced to pull the advertising, but the show will go on! Please still come to the Showdown Celebration! Please don’t let this Korporate Giant ruin this for us. We’ve not slept in days, just from the planning, and that says nothing of the financial outlay and the fellow small business (The Steer In, in Irvington) that is closing down for the evening just to host our event.

Y’all come. It’s gonna be good times, great food, and Blue on Black, and Black and Blue. Oh darn… those are both song or album titles!

*Blue On Black copyright 1997 Kenny Wayne Sheppard and Shepherd Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved.
*Black and Blue copyright 1962 Lou Rawls. All rights reserved.
*Black and Blue copyright 1973 Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. All rights reserved.
*Black and Blue copyright 1976 The Rolling Stones. All rights reserved.
*Black and Blue copyright 1988 Van Halen. All rights reserved.
*Black and Blue copyright 1991 Gene Harris. All rights reserved.
*Black and Blue copyright 2000 Backstreet Boys. All rights reserved.

FIGHT GOLIATH!
SEND A LINK TO THIS BLOG ENTRY TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!
AND DON’T FORGET TO WATCH THE VIDEO AND EMAIL THE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFmaQx5edKg

“…this is what we do.”

As of today, we have a 20-foot length of 2-inch thick braided marine-grade rope in the back of our truck. It’s coming back with us from the Gulf, as a souvenir, as a trophy, as a tribute. Mostly, it’s coming back so we can use it to hogtie the next self-righteous jerk who cops an attitude when we temporarily run out of Fresh Gulf Shrimp.

You see, a little over twelve hours ago, the rope was tied between the front of our Suburban, and the hitch of Troy Cornelius’ pickup truck, and was the lifeline by which we managed to limp home from Mobile… a 30-mile trek down I-10 and other roads at about 60 miles an hour. What a sight we must’ve been, considering we had an 8-foot enclosed trailer full of Vaucresson Sausage hitched to the Suburban! Ooooweee! Can we get a “hey y’all, watch this!”?

So. Here’s the story. While we are in Alabama picking up Zirlott Fresh Gulf Zeafood, Vance Vaucresson always drives over from New Orleans with a load of fresh Vaucresson Sausage. We drive up to Mobile to meet him, since we’re a bit off the beaten path down here. Generally, it’s a fairly painless process for both Vance and for us.

Until this time. While we were up in Mobile waiting for Vance, with all four children in tow, Vance called to say that he was stuck behind an accident on I-10, and was still over an hour from Mobile. So, we stalled. We found things to do to occupy the kids. We rescheduled afternoon plans to go out for a Zeafood run. We put the lives of about twenty people on hold while we waited for the Vaucresson delivery.

Then… the truck died.

No warning, it just stopped running and wouldn’t start up again. 700 miles from home, 30 miles from anyone we knew, on the side of a major highway in a strange town, the truck decided to take an extended leave of absence. Great timing it was not.

Vance met up with us in the middle of who-knows-where. Thank God for GPS. We loaded 600 pounds of Vaucresson Sausage into coolers in the trailer, and scratched our heads while we figured out what to do. Mechanics were all closed for the day, and no towing service was willing to tow the Suburban with the trailer attached. Nevermind the fact that there was nowhere to tow it, or that 600 pounds of fresh Vaucresson Sausage required refrigeration before the night was over.

Enter the Zirlott family. Actually, a Zirlott son-in-law, Troy Cornelius. Virtually a stranger, and yet somehow closer than family. Troy made the 45-minute drive to Mobile, immediately after work and in lieu of dinner or time with his family, for the sole purpose of causing our Suburban to stop being where it was, and get it to somewhere it wasn’t. I mentioned the problems with finding a tow truck, and he just looked at me a little off and said “Tow truck? Naw, I pull bigger’n y’all all the time”. He took a rope from the bed of his truck and began to tie a few deft knots. When Mama asked if he was sure about pulling the Suburban with the trailer attached, he just shrugged and smiled and said, “this is what we do.”

And you know what, that about sums up all of Coden, Alabama. This is just what they do. There’s no “well, I’d love to help you out, but Johnny has his football practice tonight.” It’s just an immediate “what can I do to help y’all out?” and the problem is fixed without any more discussion. It’s the CAV (Coden Alabama Version) translation of Philippians 2:14.

As with our newest friend/family, Robert Pollock, who got a call from one of the Zirlotts last night about our need to have a fuel pump replaced first thing in the morning. Robert’s immediate response? “I can be there by 7:30, is that ok?” Not only was it ok, but with less than two hours of labor, Robert had the gas tank dropped, cleaned, fuel pump replaced, and had my truck running smoothly once again. I should mention that Robert’s not a mechanic. He’s an oysterman, but his oyster bed isn’t open for harvest yet, so he had the day off.

I had trouble getting Robert to take payment for his time. He actually shrugged it all off with a “naw…”, and I stopped him before he could finish with a “…this is what we do.”

[editor's note: Mama and I get on the road tonight, about 18 hours later and $300 poorer than we intended. We have lots of fun new Zirlott Fresh Gulf Zeafood to show you, and it sure would be nice if we had lots of you to show it to on Friday. Come show Mama your appreciation this Friday. She'll be bogged down in the kitchen as always. Order up some of our new Zirlott Crab Claw appetizers, and shout out to Mama, and help her forget she's not gonna still be Way Down South. See y'all Friday!]

It’s MONDAY. Where you gonna EAT?

Okay, I’m on a new mission. Don’t you roll your eyes, it’s a good mission. I’ve finally calmed down from Saturday’s blog entry (holy cow, was it only two days ago?), and Mondays warrant a calmer, gentler start.

Today is easy. It’s for you Eastsiders, particularly those who work on the Eastside.

Every Monday you have a bit of a problem. Papa Roux is closed. Where ya gonna eat? Well, as much as it’s possible, we’ll help you out with entries on Monday suggesting places on the Eastside worth your time and money. Would you believe we have the same problem? We have what we call the “small restaurant owner’s curse” — most places we’d like to visit are also closed on Mondays!

Without delay, here’s the first suggestion on where you should eat when Papa Roux is closed:

Oriental Inn
1421 N. Arlington Ave.
352-0398

http://www.orientalinnrestaurant.com

Of course, Papa likes the spicy. No secret there. Oriental Inn is right in my neighborhood, but to be honest it’s not on my everyday path to work and home, so I tend to forget sometimes. I got reacquainted with them a few weeks back at A Taste Of Warren Township. That’s when I remembered they make the best Crab Rangoon and Spring Rolls I’ve had in this town (keep in mind, Papa doesn’t do buffets. Ever. And if you knew what we know, you wouldn’t either.)

Saturday, after watching Notre Dame define “luck of the Irish” (GO IRISH!), I had a real craving for something Chinese, real spicy, real crunchy. I spun over to Oriental Inn, and talked to the owner, Gary (yes, his name is Gary. No, it’s certainly not his real name). After discussing my preferences and cravings, Gary directed me to a dish I wasn’t familiar with that he thought would be exactly what I wanted. Twice-cooked beef, extra spicy, extra cabbage.

Boy howdy, was it ever!

So I ate it Saturday night. I ate the rest of it last night. I had two full dinners of it for under $10, and that ain’t bad! Plus, it was ready quickly, and was very very fresh.

Hmmm… Inexpensive, quick, and fresh. Remind you of anyone?

So, when you’re hungry on a Monday, drop by Oriental Inn near 16th and Arlington, visit Gary (not his real name), and tell him Papa Roux says hi!

What Kind Of Cajun Restaurant Runs Out Of SHRIMP?!?

We built The Roux on Fresh Product. Fresh French Bread for our Po-Boys. Fresh produce (never ever bagged) for our Coleslaw. Our Vaucresson Cajun and Creole Sausages are so fresh that when we call Vance Vaucresson in New Orleans to order more, he often has to check the production schedule to confirm that he will be making the varieties we need within the correct timeframe.

Zirlott Gulf Seafood. Zeafood. We’d say “don’t get us started on our fresh Zeafood”, but… too late. A customer did that for us all today. While we were yet biting our tongues and waxing poetic with apologies, we knew We’d Have To Say It In A Blog.

You see, we have a favorite kind of customer at The Roux. And just about every person that walks through the doors is that customer. We know them by name; they know us. They ask what we’ve prepared that day; we tell them. Sometimes we discuss food, sometimes life. Always we part ways having lifted each others’ spirits and the world spins just a bit more rightly for the effort.

And Then There’s The Other Kind. Not Quite So Uplifting. It’s a small, small percentage of our customers, but we got one today. We’re blogging about it because when you, our faithful, friendly, and loving regulars, see this kind of person in our restaurant, you should feel empowered to shame them into next year.

Let me tell you a little secret. Most of you must know this already, because you’ve never crossed this line… but here’s the secret: You should generally never, ever, have a conversation with a restaurant owner that starts with you saying any of the following:

• “You guys ought to do it the way that other place does it...”
• “What kind of a restaurant doesn’t sell…“
• “What kind of a restaurant runs out of…”

Because, you see, we cringe inside. We even have answers to those statements. The first is answered with “Really? Is that how you do it in your restaraurant? What’s that? You don’t have a restaurant? Exactly!”

The last two are answered by saying nothing whatsoever, watching you walk away, and hoping you do not come back. Oh, and we blog about you, too.

So this guy walks in today, in the middle of the biggest Saturday lunch rush we’ve had, ever, and orders two Shrimp Po-Boys. When I politely and apologetically explain that we are temporarily out of our Fresh Gulf Shrimp, he and his wife cancel the entire order, and leave in a huff. On the way to their car, a lady inquires if they are leaving because The Roux is too busy (very busy, yes, but not too busy), or had no seating available. The wife’s response was, in a self-important tone, “No, they’re out of shrimp! What kind of Cajun restaurant runs out of shrimp?!” They then hastily got in their car and sped off. Presumably to have their Fresh Gulf Shrimp fix satisfied at… um… wait it will come to me… hmmmmm…. yeah I got nothin’ there actually.

Anyway. Had they had the patience for any conversation whatsoever, they could have found out many interesting things, including:

• The lady inquiring about their departure was Mama Roux, who was trying to offer them a $25 Gift Card for their inconvenience.
• We only use freshly-caught Zirlott Zeafood, from about as far South as you can go before you fall into the Gulf of Mexcio.
• The Roux’s business is up 50% over projections from just 2 weeks ago, and ran out of Fresh Gulf Shrimp faster than our Mom-n-Pop shrimpers could catch, process, and ship us more. Hey, it happens. It’s fresh product. We make no apologies for having fresh product.
• We have more Fresh Gulf Shrimp enroute now, but we don’t get Saturday deliveries of Fresh Gulf products.
• We have a personal trip to Alabama scheduled for mid-October when our children have their fall break from school. With our original projections, mid-October would have been perfectly fine. Business being up 50% is a good thing. Most of our customers are thrilled for us. Of course, most of our customers also don’t think only of themselves every waking minute.

So… Mr & Mrs In-A-Huff, I’m sure your question was rhetorical, but we’re going to take the time to answer it anyway. What kind of Cajun restaurant runs out of shrimp? This kind. The kind that gets rave reviews month after month about the quality of the products we sell. Rave reviews because it’s made fresh. Ask yourself why our Shrimp Po-Boys are so popular. Ask yourself what it must be like for a husband and wife, a family of six, to manage procurement of 7 fresh products from roughly 800 miles away, all to operate the fastest-growing restaurant in your neighborhood, all so you can selfishly whine and complain when for three brief hours everything doesn’t go exactly according to your selfish desires. Then go to Taco Hut and try a Shrimp Taco. See how well you enjoy shrimp that’s been scooped up and frozen, by who-knows-what-means, in who-knows-what-country, and sold to Big Commercial Giants while our domestic Mom-n-Pop shrimpers struggle to keep their homes. Or go to another local Cajun eatery and enjoy the frozen foreign seafood products there. We encourage you to do this. In fact, we sort of really really wish you would. Because that’s the kind of place that doesn’t run out of seafood. The place that keeps frozen, pre-cooked seafood from China on hand, and loves the fact that you don’t care.

Our Promise: Moderately Slow & Moderately Pricey.

OK, that’s probably not the best title we could have chosen. We were hoping to draw your attention to a commonly overlooked danger, one you might come into contact with fairly often: fast & cheap eats.

We have quite the phenomenon at Papa Roux. We don’t have fast food. We don’t have cheap food. And yet, somehow, we manage to compete with the fast & cheap chain down the street, with all the tacos you can cram down your gullet for a buck-seventy-nine. Fast & cheap is also around the corner, with deep-fried joy for less than a penny per gram of fat.

Mind you, if tacos and deep fried joy is your thing, you’re not gonna be at home at The Roux. Our joy comes served in freshly baked French Bread. However, it’s not your cuisine of choice that we’ll be lamenting here. Rather, it’s the fast & cheap part of the equation that begs to have some light shed on it.

We’ve been planning this for a while, friends. It started in early August when, out of desperation, we stopped to eat while traveling through a 100-mile stretch of nothingness with hungry Rouxlets in the back seat.

We didn’t want to. We really didn’t want to. But we had been driving for hours with no food in sight, trying to make it down to our Alabama shrimping friends by nightfall. We saw a sign for food up ahead, the only food we had seen in a while. Waffle Hut or something like that. It sounded ominous, but like I said, we were pretty desperate. Anyway, how bad could it possibly be? Suffice it to say that that one experience, far too gruesome to be detailed here, led to the research we’re doing right now. We want to find out how the competition does it for next-to-nothing, while it’s all we can do to offer a fair price for a fair meal. I know, I know, we don’t compete with them on cuisine… but they have bigger billboards (and plenty of them), so we do compete for attention. So, like I said, we’re doing some research. The early findings are pretty scary, but we’ll certainly let you know more details as we find them.

Many of our wonderful customers may not realize that an entire movement exists dedicated to the concept of food that is slowly and lovingly crafted. It’s called “Slow Food”, and as the name implies, it’s the polar opposite of “fast food”. While “Slow Food” is a global movement, there are also chapters devoted to Slow Food USA and, on a local level, Slow Food Indy. Personal preference among slow-fooders varies a touch, but in general, if there’s a drive-up window or a speaker blaring “can I take your order? did you want fries with that?”… then it’s not Slow Food. If there’s a dollar value menu involved, then it’s not Slow Food. If everything’s deep fried and happy meals come with Disney toys… then it’s not Slow Food.

So it is that we find ourselves embracing the Slow Food movement. We’ve found a “Moderately Slow” mode , where we seem to be able to turn around hand-crafted, personally made product, using local (or authentic) products, at a fair price and at a fair speed. While the ideals of the Slow Food movement are awesome and impressive, the truth is we don’t do anyone any favors if we price ourselves or pace ourselves completely out of the “30 minute lunch” market. And so we try, with Herculean effort, to satisfy those who willingly would choose Slow Food every day, while also satisfying those who would be just as happy with “fast food.”

Want a good Slow Food dinner? Stop by Papa Roux on a Friday night (as I write this, that’s tonight!). We’ll show you a dinner you can’t get anywhere else in town, a lovingly crafted dinner made with fresh and authentic ingredients, and flavors unlike any you’ve had before. If you have adventurous children, bring them along too… but there’s no mac-n-cheese for the kids, no chicken nuggets, and not much of our menu plays well with ketchup (though we do offer hot dog poboys!). It’s just good-old-fashioned Cajun Goodness, just like Mom used to make… assuming Mom is from N’awlins.

And, in the meantime, be watchful for our entry with more details on the dark side of the menu, where we detail some findings on fast & cheap eats. I can warn you now, it’s not pretty. Pay attention when you’re out, and chances are you’ll see them too! Here’s a hint: seat yourself in proximity to a hand-washing station. Chances are you won’t see it used during the course of your stay. In any event, remember to be careful. We’re trained professionals. The Board of Health requires it. 

It Don’t Come Easy, You Know It Don’t Come Easy…

George Harrison once sang “Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues, and you know it don’t come easy.”

Listening to that song this morning, I got to thinking about The Roux, and about what we do there. About what we do now, and what we did two years ago. And thinking about what — God willing — we’ll be doing two years from now and beyond.

Ain’t none of it easy.

Rewarding? Sure. Fun? Generally. Easy? Never. Not once. Each of the four of us has generally been there more hours than not over the past two years, and I don’t recall a single day where anyone uttered the words “well, that sure was an easy day!”

But we do love it. We love the challenges, we love the satisfaction in a job well done, and we love our loyal and friendly customers. You know who you are. Seriously, without you folks, we’re just dishin’ out food, and that was never the goal.

The Roux is a ministry, for sure. Hard to hide that when you’ve got Christian scripture on the wall. It’s pretty hard to qualify exacly how we minister. Every day is different; every customer has different needs. Some people love that we’re a quiet, family-friendly place where they can just be greeted warmly. Some enjoy it when we sit and talk to them at length about the events of the day. More than a few specifically enjoy the knowledge that we’re a Christian business with more than just a fish on a sign. We’ve catered to special dietary needs that seem nearly impossible. We’ve touched the lives of people who just needed a friendly face. We’ve counseled addicts, marriages, divorces, homelessness, and much more. We have close friends now — of every ideology, religion, race and creed — that were once mere customers. Each day we open the door is a new opportunity for God to bring someone into The Roux with a specific need that we can meet — or at least attempt to — on a level that a corporate chain fast-food joint could never hope to do.

This weekend, we had the pleasure of ministering to a dear friend of mine with severe dietary restrictions. Ulcerative Colitis. Yikes. Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Holy Moly. Google it. It’s a tough diet for meal planning, and an even tougher one to follow. A person can only eat so many omelets, green salads, and bland soups. Fortunately, God has put us in a position of having access to the best seafood for hundreds of miles (thank you, Zirlott family!), as well as an ability to create culinary gems with very few ingredients. But… it don’t come easy. The crab and shrimp Zeafood salad we made on Sunday was over two hours in the making, with every ingredient carefully screened for SCD compliance, and many assumptions thrown out the window. Suffice to say our Po-Boys will not be made with hand-whipped organic toasted-garlic mayonaisse any time in the near future.

But, oh what joy to finally realize the ministry aspect of The Roux! What a pleasure it is to see God’s work on a daily basis. Granted, paychecks for Mama and me are still a carrot dangling on a stick, but God in His goodness has shown us a great motivation to do what we do every day.

And more exciting developments are just around the corner. Mama and I now sit on the Board of Advisors for the Jane Pauley Health Center opening next week at 30th and Post Road. As the Poster Children for the target consumer of the health center, Community East and Warren Schools have even invited Mama and me to speak at the ribbon cutting ceremory — an event which quite possibly will be covered in the national media. Of all the outcomes of operating a small restaurant on the east side of Indianapolis, affecting others’ lives through community involvement was not one that had occurred to us!

So as I said, here I sit, reflecting on the past two years, and pondering the future at the same time. As I type this, it’s Monday morning. We need the day to rest and recuperate, but I can’t wait for Tuesday. I truly can’t. See ya for lunch?

What Did The One Mom-N-Pop Say To The Other Mom-N-Pop?

Nothing at all. Nothing needed saying. There’s an unspoken bond between Mom-N-Pops, regardless of industry, that says “Brother, I understand.”

It’s no secret that Papa Roux is a Mom-N-Pop that supports other Mom-N-Pops. Still, I wonder how many people really “get it”. What we do goes far beyond anti-corporate sentiments, far beyond an aversion to TPS reports and forms in triplicate. It’s a way of life, a good fight against a bad mentality, a constant struggle for survival in a world where the deck is not only stacked but placed out of reach of the one hand tied behind your back.

So it is that we choose to do business with other Mom-N-Pops as much as possible. Every morning we pick up a load of freshly baked French Bread from a tiny little bakery on the Eastside. We proudly and confidently tout the freshest French Bread for miles, which of course makes our Po-Boys easily the best sandwiches on the Eastside.

The big Korporate bread truck guy came in a few weeks ago, wanting to know why we don’t do business with him. “Maybe because your bread is laughable and you expect me to keep it for 3 days at a stretch. Possibly because you won’t care one lick about how my business is growing, except in that it means more sales for you. Certainly because when anyone besides you signs your paycheck you don’t have the slightest clue how much passion it takes to do this. Day after day after day. Now you’d better git. Your push-to-talk is beeping.”

We quite possibly take our Mom-N-Pop philosophy to the extreme. All of our seafood comes from 700 miles away, on the Gulf Coast. Actually, it’s 708 miles away to be exact. I know this because we’ve driven the route twice in the past three weeks to keep Shrimp Po-Boys flowing at The Roux. We’ve always bragged on how we have the freshest Gulf Shrimp in Indianapolis. It’s time to back up that claim with some details. I should warn you now, I get a little passionate about this. The entry I’m about to write might even offend a few people. That’s fine. If you’re offended by anything in this entry, you probably had it coming. 

Lately, Mama Roux and I (and all the kiddarouxs) have been blessed with opportunities to spend quality time with our shrimp trawling friends, the Zirlotts, down on the Gulf Coast in Alabama. For the past two years, we had been having fresh Gulf product shipped up weekly via FedEx. The problem (and blessing) with FedEx delivery is that as our business increases, the FedEx shipping charges grow to a sizeable bill. Three weeks ago, Mama looked at the numbers and realized we could drive down and pick up our shrimp for less than the cost of shipping. I’ll admit that it doesn’t hurt that it’s the Gulf Coast, and it’s God’s Bayou Country, with nearby Dauphin Island beaches. Papa was Born On The Bayou, and grew up along the Gulf Coast Beaches, so there really wasn’t any hesitation. Besides, we were out of shrimp at The Roux, and that’s never a good situation.

We arrived at the Zirlotts, and both expanded and shrunk our world in the same instant.

Shrunk it, obviously, because our tiny little restaurant, which had for two years enclosed us in a bubble with a four-mile radius, now included this magical warp zone that brought us to the Deep South. Suddenly, once a month or whenever we need to or feel like it, we wake up in Indy but fall asleep on the Gulf Coast. It’s a unique and wonderfully blessed feeling.

Expanded in that we only thought we knew what daily struggles were. Brother let me tell you, until you make a living in the fishing and shrimping industry, yours is a life of pampered frills and no worries. Trust me on this.

Every day we were there, we tried to catch the hustle and bustle of their day. Try as we might, we always ended up missing at least the first few hours. By the time we strolled out of bed at a leisurely 7 am, they were wrapping up the first stages of hauling/cooking/processing freshly caught crab and shrimp. Still, we managed to see at least some of the operation, and it’s an impressive one to be sure. Five to ten people, all of them fami… um I mean KINFOLK… working like a well-oiled machine to ensure that today’s Fresh Catch is kept as pristine as possible, from live in the shell to packed and chilled. It’s an amazing sight. We even have video of the more fascinating bits (we’ll post them soon hopefully), and believe me you need to watch in slow motion to even see what their skilled hands are doing!

A word or two about the operation down there: it’s clean. It’s very basic, but it’s very very clean. Every piece of their operation reminds you just how simple it all should be. You don’t need multi-million-dollar stainless steel facilities to get it right. All the equipment in the world is no substitute for a good work ethic, good habits and practices, and common sense. Let’s just say that you can feel really really good about the quality of the Zirlott Seafood (they call it Zeafood) we put on your plate. We sure feel good about it.

I wonder if the other Cajun places in Indy — or any seafood places in Indy for that matter — have ever inspected the facilities of their vendors? Buddy, you think we had a long trip at 708 miles… fancy a trip to China, anyone?

Which brings me to the main point of this entire entry: IMPORTED SEAFOOD.

Why do we tolerate it? Why on earth do we support it?

Our domestic economy is in the toilet, unemployment and welfare numbers are going through the roof, and at least one of our responses is “gosh isn’t that sad… oh well… anyone in the mood for frozen shrimp from china?”

I have so many stories to tell about why you should never ever support imported seafood ever again. I have Board of Health concerns, I have domestic economy concerns. I have quality and taste concerns. Stop in at The Roux sometime and I’ll give you an earful. But let me focus on just one issue here, which is the impact imported seafood has on my fami… err KINFOLK down on the Gulf Coast.

I’ve met most all of the core Zirlott family. They’re a beautiful and very close family. On any given day, at least one branch of the family pays a visit and hangs out, and generally sets to work with the family business. Often there’s several children and grandchildren that accidentally meet up at Victor Zirlott’s house (Vic is the Zirlott patriarch). On Sundays, it’s understood that a multi-generational gathering of at least 25 people will take place for worship, dinner, and recreation.

However, in our many visits there, there is one Zirlott we’ve not met. He’s always out shrimping. Sometimes off the coast of Texas, sometimes off the coast of Florida. Always putting his family’s needs above his own, and always doing whatever he can to keep an income flowing. There’s pictures of him on the walls at Vic’s house. Last Sunday, during dinner (we made full-loaf Po-Boys and Jambalaya for the Zirlott clan), his daughters were looking at the pictures, and one of them said “oh look, there’s Daddy.” It turns out they don’t see Daddy very often either, as he spends so much time trawling for shrimp, hauling in crabs, and catching much of the Zeafood that you enjoy in your Gumbo and on Po-Boys at The Roux.

And for what gain? Most processing plants to offer him a laughable rate on Fresh Gulf Shrimp, some days barely enough to cover the expense of spending a month out at sea (upwards of $30,000 in fuel alone for a month at sea!).

It wasn’t always this bad. Time was, a month at sea fed and clothed his family without any problem. What changed? People got greedy, got selfish, and stopped caring. It became far more important to have Crawfish Etouffee — in November — in Indiana — than to have believable and quality product only where it’s seasonally and regionally available. Fresh Gulf Shrimp in Indiana is available year-round (it’s a hassle, but it’s available). Fresh crawfish isn’t available in November anywhere, and yet somehow as a society we’ve come to expect it. And so we buy it, and ignore the fact that for every pound of pre-cooked, frozen, imported Chinese crawfish tail we buy, somewhere there’s a Daddy who has been out to sea for a month, and comes home to his children to explain that prices are so low this year that he’s got to turn around and go out again tomorrow just to keep the lights on.

So, yeah, I get passionate about it. I want people to think about what they do and how it affects families. I want people to stop and think about whether or not the purchase they are about to make will enable a family to buy one extra gallon of milk that week, or if it simply means that some guy at Corporate Headquarters is impressed with how much money is flooding in from store #8034 this month.

You see, the Zirlott’s fight is my fight. For every “imported seafood” battle they have, I have a similar battle with a Taco Hut or a Pizza Bell selling garbage at prices I can’t touch, and people passing up The Roux to stop and grab a 60g fat 1100 calorie lunch that they order by yelling at a tinny speaker before throwing $5 in a window and driving away shoveling themselves full of “happiness” on the way to the gym. So I’m going to fight for the Mom-N-Pops on this one. I’m fighting for common sense. I’m fighting for ethics. Whoever I support, if it’s a Mom-N-Pop, I’m fighting for my own family.

Oh and by the way, I am taking the Mom-N-Pop fight outside of the walls of The Roux. I didn’t mention above, but I have a buddy from high school in New Orleans, Vance Vaucresson, who makes the best and most authentic Cajun Sausage in the world. Vaucresson Sausage is hands-down the only name in New Orleans that screams authenticity and quality, and has for over 100 years. Every time I go to the Gulf Coast for seafood, Vance meets me in Mobile with a few hundred pounds of sausage, so I can make the best Sausage Po-Boys in the world for you folks. And for every issue the Zirlotts have with their business, Vance has one with his, just like we do with ours (Vance lost his family’s 100-year-old sausage factory in Hurricane Katrina, and is still in the process of rebuilding). So we stick together. We support each other. I’m now asking my customers and business friends to do the same.

And it’s working. A major Mom-N-Pop pizza restaurant on the Eastside is now changing suppliers, dropping the imported and non-authentic seafood and sausage products in favor of  Zirlott and Vaucresson. I’ll supply them with hundreds of pounds of product each month, which in turn helps my Zirlott and Vaucresson extended KINFOLK, and helps you good people in Indianapolis experience quality product at more places than just at The Roux.

Tell your friends. Tell your favorite Mom-N-Pop businesses. Have them contact me for availability and pricing. My dream is to get so much of Indianapolis hooked on Zirlott and Vaucresson that they become household names here in Indy, just as they already are in their respective hometowns.

Against all odds…

Growth (n.): A stage in the process of growing; progressive development.

Okay, so there’s other definitions as well, but I don’t think they apply as well. We toyed with a motto of “That Cajun Growth on Indy’s Eastside”, but it didn’t play well, didn’t roll off the tongue.

But the good kind of growth, now that’s what we’re talkin’ about! New menu items. New regular customers. New hours! New employees! So many new things, it’s hard to keep track of it all.

The wall came down. Our vast open space is more conducive to keeping the customers happy. Fed. Entertained. Depending on the customer, it keeps us entertained too. You know who you are.

We’re tickled at our growth. We’re a little scared of it, but we embrace a challenge. We’re ready for it. Bring it on. Did I mention we hired new employees?! In this economy, and on the Eastside, no less!

Allow me to reflect on that for a moment. Two years ago, I went out on a limb. I left a comfortable job in Corporate America. A job that was not backfilled. It simply went away, along with thousands of other jobs in the same company over the past two years. And… the result? The result has been nothing short of amazing! I created my dream job. My wife’s dream job. My customers’ favorite hangout. And I created five jobs on the Eastside in the process. Okay… I didn’t do it. God did it. All I did was take a leap of faith.

And so… the next step: longevity, sustainability, health & well being. No, I’m not talking about the restaurant. I’m talking about Mama and Papa Roux, I’m talking about Paul and Allison, our two hardworking and dependable friends who have been here from the earliest days. We’re reaching the point where five 12 hour days in a row, generally without breaks, are getting to be too much. We need to learn to take time away, lest we grow too weary to serve you with the same quality and pep we’ve had for two years now.

So we’re doing just that. Mama and I will go first. We leave this Sunday, off to The Deep South for a few weeks. We’ll visit our shrimp trawlers and discuss all things shrimpy. We’ll visit Vaucresson Sausage of New Orleans and discuss our common love of stuffing meat with other meat. We’ll visit a bunch of our smaller vendors as well (funny… by “smaller” I mean they play a much smaller role at Papa Roux. They’re actually the bigger companies, but without our mom-n-pop shrimper and sausage king, we’d be in serious trouble!).

And, of course, we’ll enjoy lots of time in that magical world where time slows way way down, and you enjoy every breath and sight and smell. The swamps south of New Orleans, the beaches in Alabama, but mostly the dining tables across the South where we are but guests, enjoying Southern Hospitality at its finest.

Papa

PS – This message was specifically crafted for you, our loyal and faithful customer. Please visit Papa Roux while we are away during the first two weeks of May, and offer Paul and Allison your warmest wishes, your encouragement, and your heartfelt condolences.

If You Wanna Run Cool, You’ve Got To Run On Heavy Heavy Fuel

What a wild ride this business can be. Year One was brutal in its slowness and unpredictability. I understand that. It takes a while to establish street cred. People drifted in slowly. Word of mouth spread just as slowly. New in the business as we were, it took a while to convince the community we were here to stay.

Year two is proving to be just as brutal, but for different reasons. I guess I thought we would trend up over time. No such luck. We exploded, and it caught us off guard. Suddenly, what we do is no longer a three-person show. We’ve taught ourselves to work with an efficiency I wouldn’t have thought possible, and yet we’re just barely staying afloat somedays.

Luckily, it didn’t catch us unprepared, just off guard. We have a plan, we just didn’t realize it was time to pull the trigger until… well until we pulled the trigger. Now we’re calling in backup, buying new equipment, giving up precious days off to rebuild the house we built not so very long ago. One day. One smash-and-grab day, and we will transform The Roux into a lean, mean, Po-Boy makin’ mosheen.

Of course, if you’ve been with us any length of time at all, you know that this is how we roll. We started small. Exactly how small is hard to describe, but photos exist showing the evidence. Remember no dining room? No A/C? No dishes? And with each new milestone reached, another one is always in sight.

The excitement of having seemingly half the community in our doors for lunch, and the other half for dinner, cannot be overstated. We long for the old days, sometimes, when we could stand around and chat with new friends, old friends, and regulars, because the line wasn’t out the door, and the dining room wasn’t overflowing. In fact, that’s generally what we talked about.

And we eagerly await the day when we transform our operation in such a way that we can once again stand around and chat with new friends, old friends, and regulars. Only this time we’ll be talking about how cool it is that the line is out the door, and the dining room is overflowing.

Need an alligator fix? Vaucresson’s your sausage, friend!

We redesigned our menu this week. Yes, partly because the old menu was a bit confusing, but mostly because we’re picking up a whole line of gourmet Cajun and Creole sausages from Vaucresson Sausage of New Orleans!

The new sausages arrive next week. After some in-house testing and experimenting (in other words, eating lots of yummy Cajun goodies), we’ll finalize the Gourmet Sausage section of our new menu, and release an array of new Po-Boys and Sausage Add-ons! We won’t know the final cut until next week, but it may contain any of these fantastic sausages and meats:

• Alligator Sausage
• Crawfish Sausage
• Mild Smoked Creole Sausage
• Spicy Andouille Sausage
• Boudin Sausage
• Tasso
• Cajun Pickled Pork

The menu can be found online here, and will be updated, soon and often, once the sausage arrives.

Stay tuned for more information as we perfect the final cut!