Thibodeaux's Brings Cajun Cooking Back to the Former Original Patti Space

LAFAYETTE, La. — The restaurant space at 505 Pont des Mouton Road has sat quiet since August, when The Original Patti closed its doors for good. Now it has a new tenant with a very old Acadiana story. Thibodeaux's, a locally owned Cajun restaurant founded by Barry Burrows and Brandy Thibodeaux Burrows, is tentatively set to open Tuesday, Oct. 20, in the Couret Farms neighborhood of north Lafayette.

A Family Name Comes Back to Pont des Mouton

The Thibodeaux name has a long history in the local food business. Brandy's father, Troy Thibodeaux, spent years as the meat market manager at the Winn-Dixie on Moss Street before opening Thibodeaux's Specialty Meats in the early 1990s, where the shop became known for its plate lunches and specialty meat selection. Her grandfather, Rodney Thibodeaux, spent years running the Winn-Dixie in Breaux Bridge before that.

For Barry and Brandy, opening Thibodeaux's is a way to honor that family history while bringing the name back near the area where their family first established roots in the local food business. Barry is from Carencro and Brandy is from Church Point, and both grew up with Acadiana's food, culture and music as part of everyday life.

What's on the Menu

The menu leans on the classics: seafood, steaks, oysters, étouffée, gumbo, burgers, po'boys, boiled crawfish, boiled shrimp and other Cajun staples. A large bar will anchor the room, and the plans call for live music and bingo nights — an atmosphere, as the founders describe it, centered on the food, music and culture of Acadiana.

An Address With a Story of Its Own

The building at 505 Pont des Mouton Road has been a restaurant destination for years. It most recently housed The Original Patti, which closed abruptly in August 2026, a day after telling customers that a broken hood vent system had shut down its kitchen. Before that, the space was home to Romacelli, a long-running Italian favorite in the Couret Farms development.

The Original Patti name traced back to 1971, when the original Ground Pat'i opened on Johnston Street near the UL Lafayette campus and grew into a pregame and postgame stop for Cajuns football crowds over the following decades. In 2021, new owners renamed that restaurant The Original Patti and opened a second location under the name in the former Romacelli space on Pont des Mouton. The Johnston Street location closed in June 2024, and after the August closure of Pont des Mouton, the name no longer has an operating storefront in Lafayette — though the Ground Pat'i name it grew from returned to the original 1971 building on Johnston Street in 2025 under new ownership.

For a well-established location with a built-in customer base, the arrival of a locally owned Cajun restaurant is the kind of second act neighbors hope becomes a Lafayette staple.

When the Doors Open

The tentative opening date is Tuesday, Oct. 27th. The restaurant will be closed on Mondays. Expect menus, hours and a live music schedule to land on the restaurant's social pages once the doors open. For north Lafayette, the timing is right: another locally owned name, another neighborhood gathering spot, and a family's food story picking up where it left off.

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