It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch
It's Acadiana: Out to Lunch
OUT TO LUNCH Business over lunch. Each week Christiaan Mader invites guests from Acadiana's business community to join him for sushi at Tsunami in downtown Lafayette. Beyond the foundations of the Acadiana economy - oil, cuisine, music - there is a vast network of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and even some of the country's largest companies who call Acadiana home. Out to Lunch is the cafeteria…Social links:
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Guitar Two-Step
There’s an old saying you’ve probably heard before: Those who can’t do, teach. Well, that’s total BS. If you’ve ever tried to teach someone anything — how to play a guitar chord, how to dance a two-step, how to do just about anything — you know that saying has it exactly backwards. Teaching is har…
30:48
What's Your Story?
Hi, Christiaan here, host of Out to Lunch Acadiana. Everyone’s got a story. It’s why I got into journalism. People are just interesting. But having a story doesn’t mean you’re any good at telling it. That part takes skill. And a lot of discipline — Even if you’re using a large language model to hel…
29:05
Pet Projects
When we talk about running a business, we usually talk about revenue models, staffing, square footage, and growth plans. We talk about work. What we don’t always talk about is emotional work. The phone calls you don’t charge for. The time spent listening instead of billing. The moments when you’re …
29:34
Dig It
Some things you don’t think about until they stop working. Then you get a trickle from your shower head. Suddenly, all you can think about is what’s happening with the pipes underground. There’s money to be made in invisible industries. That’s true if you’re pumping water from a well — a technolo…
29:10
Steel Towers, New Neighbors
When we talk about “growth,” we usually mean population, jobs, or maybe cranes on the skyline. But growth isn’t abstract — it’s physical. It’s steel. It’s dirt. It’s concrete. It’s towers you don’t notice and neighborhoods you drive past every day. Christiaan's guests on Out to Lunch are both in t…
30:20
Ton's Uncle Bob
People in Acadiana love restaurants. They love talking about them, reviewing them, arguing about them. They always seem to think they could run one. Hey, if you can cook, why not? Here’s the thing: Restaurants are famously unforgiving businesses. Margins are thin. Labor is hard to find and harder…
32:45
Homey Helium
Some people make a living building things. Others make a living making those things look good. There’s more to decoration than meets the eye. Space has a tremendous impact on how we think and feel. Sometimes it really is all about appearances, and that’s true whether you’re picking out curtains fo…
29:05
Down On The Farm
Farming isn’t what it used to be. Louisiana has lost thousands of small farms over the last few decades. The average farmer is over 58. Land prices keep going up, commodity prices keep wobbling, and modern farming techniques are about scale, not stewardship of the land. The small independent farme…
30:30
It's Magic
We often think of “doing good” as the business of nonprofits. You start a foundation, apply for grants, hold gumbo cook-offs, and hope the IRS sees things your way. But what if you didn’t need tax-exempt status to make the world better? What if turning a profit and doing good weren’t opposites — bu…
29:20
Geaux Grow
There's a temptation in business to want everything fast. Fast growth, fast profits, fast success. But the most durable things—the things that actually last—are often built slowly and with intention. My guests on this edition of Out to Lunch understand that patience is a strategy. Both came to th…
29:20