A Legacy of Black-Owned Restaurants to Support in and Around Shreveport-Bossier
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“Every day that I am here, I am able to feel his presence and him just working through me and making sure that I am doing everything I can to continue the family’s legacy,” Chapman said. Ironically, he now owns the restaurant, which is within eyeshot of where his father took his last breath on that boat dock on Cross Lake. He took over and renamed the restaurant Orlando’s as a tribute to his father.
Herby-K’s restaurant is an American bar and seafood restaurant located in an old, cozy, abandoned warehouse. Enjoy delicious hot, spicy crawfish (in season), as well as Cajun dishes, salads, PO-boys, hamburgers, seafood, and ribeye steaks. Taking pride in its most delicious seafood and Cajun dishes, it’s the best alternative to Athena Greek & Lebanese and Strawn’s Eat Shop. Athena’s Greek and Lebanese Grill is a beautiful family-owned Mediterranean restaurant that opened in 2002.
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El Cabo Verde is a fantastic restaurant offering traditional Mexican dishes with a modern twist located in the Southern louisiana longhorn cafe Loop and Provenance area just along I-49. This popular restaurant is celebrating 100 years in business this year and you’ll love their Southern-style comfort food with a Louisiana twist. They’re most famous for Ernest’s Famous Marinated Crab Claws and their flaming bowl of seafood gumbo!
“There’s a dozen people who are, right now, making this style of stuffed shrimp at their houses and selling them on the streets of Shreveport. It’s not even just other restaurants, Chapeaux said. Chapeaux’s late father, Orlando Chapman—a towering, mustachioed man who was known to sport an old-fashioned chef’s toque while cooking—always told him that only family members should be allowed to see the rolling process from start to finish. Stuffed shrimp rollers are respected not only because rolling is a lengthy and difficult process, but also because the practice has traditionally been passed down from one generation of stuffed shrimp cooks to the next. Chapeaux navigates the complicated hierarchy of Shreveport stuffed shrimp every day of his life.
From one restaurant kitchen to the next, Freeman & Harris-style stuffed shrimp spread across Shreveport until what began as the house specialty of a single neighborhood café had emerged as a citywide food tradition. Chef Orlando, as he was known, would go so far as to clear the kitchen of his restaurant, Brother’s Seafood, whenever he settled in to roll stuffed shrimp or to make the restaurant’s tartar sauce, a beloved condiment more akin to New Orleans–style remoulade. This family event also highlights the impact of Eddie Hughes, the creator of the stuffed shrimp, who brought his community together through compassion, dedication and deliciously-rolled seafood. In recent years Shreveport’s stuffed shrimp restaurants have attracted national media attention, including the 2015 naming of Eddie’s Restaurant as one of the South’s best soul food restaurants by Southern Living. Freeman & Harris Café closed permanently in 1994, but the restaurant’s signature stuffed shrimp can still be tasted at several Black-owned food businesses in Shreveport. Competing restaurants in Shreveport began serving their own versions of stuffed shrimp in response to the city’s growing appetite for the dish.
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Shreveport’s Stuffed Shrimp are a testament to the power home-cooked food can have on a community. His family continues his legacy through both cooking and giving back. The festival will celebrate the unique history of this Shreveport specialty with live music, games, food and cooking demonstrations of course. Roll shrimp in flour; dip into egg wash made with remaining eggs and milk.
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Was he worried that other restaurants would watch the video and attempt to duplicate his family’s recipe and process? Big Jerry is a stuffed shrimp roller at Orlandeaux’s, which places him among an elite inner circle of employees who are entrusted to produce the restaurant’s most popular menu item. His brow is often furrowed with concern for a line cook who hasn’t shown up yet, a batch of tartar sauce that needs to be made, or the details of an upcoming party in the restaurant’s perpetually booked second-floor ballroom. Chapeaux assigned Little Jerry to the deep fryer, the busiest station in the kitchen of a restaurant known for fried seafood. “Brother” Chapman began his career working at his father’s side at Freeman & Harris Cafe’ in the early 1950’s, when he was a high school junior. The resturant was widely recognized for its delicious soul food, most famous for its fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, stuffed shrimp, and peach pie. His father, “Scrap,” along with Pete Harris and the late Wilmer “Tody” Wallette, served as his culinary mentors. They taught “Brother” Chapman the majority of his skills of the trade. “Our stuffed shrimp is what we’re known for. It was created in the Freeman and Harris kitchen. People come from near and far to try that. Our gumbo and etouffee, our smothered pork chops, smothered goose liver and chicken liver. Those down-home southern cooking items that you got that grandmother was cooking in the day. That brings you all the way back to home.”
The New Schnitzel House in Miami, Florida, has given life to a classic German restaurant from long ago, and you don’t want to miss your chance to get your bratwurst on. We’re not going to lie to you – German food is not so easy to come by here in the Sunshine State. The New Schnitzel House in Miami offers a delightful array of traditional German dishes, including schnitzel, bratwurst, and homemade pretzels. For more information on 318 Restaurant Week, visit /restaurantweek.
- The café is situated by a lake, providing a lovely view while waiting for a table.
- The best part is, you don’t have to wait to get home or try to look for restaurants near you before you can dig in.
- With candlelit tables, a romantic, dim atmosphere, and savory steaks and seafood, you can’t have a better date than this.
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Iconic Cuisine: Shreveport-Style Stuffed Shrimp
We are family-owned and proud to preserve recipes passed down through generations. Locals recommend it for delicious dishes like gumbo, cornbread, boudin balls, beignets, Stuff shrimp, and shrimp and grits, which are often described as amazing. Orlandeaux’s Café is a beloved restaurant known for its authentic southern cuisine. Our restaurant has been called Freeman & Harris Cafe, Pete Harris Cafe, Brother’s Seafood and now, Orlandeaux’s Café.
When Chapeaux climbed down from the roof in full view of the large crowd that milled about waiting for him to unlock the restaurant’s front door. Chapeaux’s father, Orlando Chapman, cooked at Pete Harris Café until he departed to open Brother’s Seafood following Brother Chapman’s death in 2003. Some of those changes were small but meaningful adjustments, such as manager Pete Harris’ decision to change the restaurant’s slogan from “House of Good Foods” to “House of Fine Foods” in 1957, telegraphing a more sophisticated sensibility. In 1936 the restaurant moved into a larger space in the historically Black neighborhood of Allendale, where it would function as a central hub of social life for sixty years. Business at Freeman & Harris was brisk, and the café eventually outgrew its small, shared storefront on the Avenue.
Great tea is a good choice for the first time you come to Brother’s Seafood. This restaurant is to be recommended for tasty peach cobbler, fruitcake and flija. My experience is that no mayonnaise-based sauces thaw well when frozen and don’t change consistency. It goes well with fried or baked fish or shrimp.


