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?