It’s Baton Rouge: Out to Lunch

Hosted ByStephanie Riegel

OUT TO LUNCH finds Baton Rouge Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel combining her hard news journalist skills and food background: conducting business over lunch. Baton Rouge has long had a storied history of politics being conducted over meals, now the Capital Region has an equivalent culinary home for business: Mansur’s. Each week Stephanie holds court over lunch at Mansur’s and invites members of the Baton Rouge business community to join her. You can also hear the show on WRKF 89.3FM.

Passion For Poisson – Out to Lunch – It’s Baton Rouge

South Louisiana is famous for its seafood – but can you harness our passion for poisson and turn it into a fast-food fish biz, like Popeye’s and Cane’s have done with chicken? That’s what Tyler Pizzolatto is banking on.

tyler pizzolatto

Around a year ago Tyler, whose family is steeped in the Baton Rouge fish biz, opened Crispy Catch – the area’s first fast causal restaurant featuring farm-raised catfish in every menu item. Crispy Catch is in the Perkins Road overpass area of Baton Rouge. You might be suprprised to find out where the Crispy catfish farm is located.

In the fish biz, as in every other business, knowledge is power. Aggregating knowledge from fishing boats and seafood processing plants is not a simple process. That’s the specialized business of fish-fact company, Bluefin Data. A Baton Rouge company, Bluefin has created software specifically for the seafood industry that improves communication and increases transparency between seafood dealers and government agencies.

andrew petersen, tyler pizzolatto

Andrew Petersen is the lead developer at Bluefin Data. 

For all the seafood we have here in Louisiana, the one we don’t have is lobster. And if you can find it, it’s usually too expensive to order other than for special occasions. That’s all changing thanks to Trey Killeen’s startup company, Southern Buoy Lobster.

trey killeen

Trey uses his 4th generation lobstermen family connections in Masscheussets Bay to cut out enough middle-men to transport lobster to Baton Rouge at afforfdable prices.

Stephanie Riegel

Photos taken at Mansur’s On the Boulevard by Ken Stewart.