Restaurant Review
Back to a boil
With a change in leadership, this north Lafayette parish eatery is going ganbusters again.


Paul's Pirogue
209 E. St. Peter St., Carencro
(337) 896-3788
Tuesday - Thursday 5:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m.
Friday - Saturday 5:30 p.m.-11 p.m.
Sunday 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m.

Last year, the Carencro institution Paul's Pirogue was close to permanently powering down the boilers. The Angelle family operation was struggling to make a profit after 27 years of overwhelming success, and Paul Angelle Sr. made the decision to sell the restaurant.

Luckily, the family doesn't own the turn-of-the-century rustic building on St. Peter Street — they've leased it since opening in 1984 after they moved the restaurant from an abandoned fish market on the Bayou Teche in Arnaudville — so it was difficult to garner buyer interest. Enter Paul Sr.'s sons, Paul Jr., 41, and Andre, 32. "You can't buy 30 years," says Paul Jr. retrospectively about the attempt to close. "We need another solution." After his father sold both his camp and boat to make payroll and began suffering from health problems, including heavy drinking, Paul Jr. moved back to Carencro in July to take over restaurant management and is slowly but surely working to return the Pirogue to its former glory. Paul Sr., now seven months sober, is still extremely involved — but you'll never see him during business hours.

"I couldn't be happier with the changes," says Paul Jr. Perhaps the mother of those changes was ripping down a plywood wall only to discover an antique copper-top bar that had been covered when the restaurant opened (because families didn't frequent restaurants with bars). Now, Paul Jr. says, customers come for after-work drinks, and families are meeting up for dinner later in the evening. The atmosphere is nothing but casual, and Paul Jr. says he wants to maintain the rustic feel. The walls are made of raw cypress and antique photos, and memorabilia lines the walls, including a collection of taxidermied animals, which Paul Jr. jokes is a result of newlywed wives who tell the husbands they cannot keep their prize gazelle, elk, and fish on their walls any longer.

By working together, Paul Angelle Jr. and his father, Paul Sr., were able to turn the struggling Paul's Pirogue around. An institution in downtown Carencro, the seafood restaurant is slowly but surely returning to its former glory.