Lemonade & Lager

The lemonade stand has become a sort of iconic institution in the American narrative: the kid on the side of the road peddling lemonade from a pitcher. A way to make a little extra change and stave of summer boredom while also picking up a thing or two about the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. B…

Fran U Mes Amis

Louisiana continues to rank behind almost every other state in the country in terms of its educational outcomes across the board – from Pre-K through post secondary. But buried under those bad stats, are some bright spots – success stories of programs and schools that are finding ways to prepare st…

Blitz!

We often lump "tourism and hospitality" together because they seem to go together, but like other conjunctive categories like "sales and marketing" or "chicken and waffles,"  "tourism and hospitality" is a vast umbrella under which there are a plethora of specialties. within these sub-groups, entre…

Yes, It's Baton Rouge!

Anyone who’s been around Baton Rouge for a while has noticed the amazing transformation of its downtown over the past 30 years. it's a transformation that has come in large part from the planning and leadership of the Downtown Development District. In that time, the capital city has also seen grow…

One Rouge Lighthouse

Entrepreneurs frequently explain how they came up with a business idea to solve some sort of problem they personally experienced. This "necessity is the mother of invention" incentive is also true in the world of non-profits and purpose-driven businesses more concerned about making a difference tha…

Please Listen Carefully Our Menu Has Changed

Have you heard this sentence lately? “Please listen carefully, our menu has changed.” I bet you have. It seems like every place you call, from a giant multinational company to a local small business, has a phone system that for some mysterious reason has to constantly be updated. Why exactly does…

Feeling Good

Everybody likes to feel good. For some people that's simply the absence of pain. For other it's chocolate cake. As consumers we all like to splurge from time to time. Even if we’re pinching pennies, there’s always going to be a special something we’ll make an exception for because it makes us feel…

Rock Climbers & Acrobats

You often hear people giving business or career advice along the lines of, "Do something you love and you'll never have a bad day at work." Intuitively you just know that's not true: there's no such thing as having a great day every day, but as we've discovered over the years here on Out to Lunch, …

Affordable Healthcare That Actually Is Affordable

When it comes to quality of life measures, Louisiana ranks near last in every category – especially health-related categories like life expectancy, and rates of diabetes, cancer, hypertension and heart disease. And we have some of the worst outcomes of any state in the U.S. But entrepreneurially-mi…

The One Constant is Change

The one constant in business (and in life), is change. Like most platitudes, this one also is true. You might not think things as already established and mundane as breakfast cereal or everyday signage need to change. But they do. Companies that are able to adapt to change, even if they’ve been a…