Some businesses don’t just sell a product — they sell a feeling. They create an experience you can’t fully describe on a website, because the magic is sensory. It’s atmosphere. It’s memory. It’s the thing that makes you walk into a space and instantly feel like you belong there — or like you’ve been there before.

From a business standpoint, that’s a tricky thing to build. You can’t ship “vibe” in a box. But you can design it — intentionally — through the details: the ingredients, the storytelling, the setting, the community you build around it.

Johanna Divine sits in for Christiaan Mader on this edition of Out to Lunch and hosts two guests who make their living creating experiences that are hard to explain, but easy to feel.

Rochelle Campbell is the founder of Pure Intentions Candle Company, a small candle business based in Youngsville specializing in clean-burning candles — and candle-making experiences that are part product, part party, part community event.

Yvette Landry is a musician, educator, author and interpreter, who – between playing shows, teaching and writing books – has also built a successful business hosting Cajun music and history tours in the Atchafalaya Basin.

Candles and music are two very different products, but both Rochelle and Yvette are  in the business of creating a feeling people want to come back to. Rochelle is building a product line around clean ingredients, seasonal storytelling, and in-person experiences that connect people to her brand. Yvette is proving that culture can be both art and enterprise — through live performance, books, teaching, and tours that translate Acadiana to the world.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette.You can find photos from this show by Alisha Zachery Lazard at itsacadiana.com.