By BEN LUNDIN

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – St. John residents searching for more options to pleasure their palates and quell their hunger pains will find delight in two new restaurants arriving in LaPlace.

Two property owners received permits to open Shane’s Rib Shack, part of a national chain of fast-casual barbecue restaurants, and Dot’s Diner, a chain of diners based in New Orleans, according to Adrienne Labat of St. John Planning and Zoning.

Shane’s Rib Shack, which will be located at 798 Belle Terre Blvd. in a 3,000 square foot building, is a rapidly growing chain with a menu that includes baby back ribs, pork and barbecue sandwiches, wings, chicken tenders, salads, and is recognized for its tantalizing Shane’s barbecue sauce, a generations-old secret recipe.

Dot’s Diner, slated to be replace the old Bud’s Broiler at 1400 W Airline Hwy., is famous in New Orleans for its array of made-to-order breakfast foods, including The Big Dot Breakfast, the Country Breakfast, and the Dotwich, scrambled eggs, cheese and a sausage patty sandwiched inside a grilled buttermilk biscuit.

The restaurant also serves hunger sating lunches and dinners such as the Big Dot Burger, a hefty sandwich with two beef patties topped with onions, cheese, pickles, lettuce and tomatoes on sesame seed bun. But the diner is perhaps most famous for its spokeswoman Dot, who declares with a Cajun accent that &#8220Dot’s Dinah’s” food is &#8220just like yah momma used tah make.”

Shane’s Rib Shack, one of several restaurants owned by Raving Brands, which also owns P.J.’s Coffee, Mama Fu’s and Planet Smoothie Café, began four years ago in Atlanta as a small, independently owned roadside barbecue diner. Raving Brands bought the name and concept of fast-casual barbecue from founder Shane Thompson and the restaurant has already grown into more than 40 chains in eight states, according to the Associated Press.

Dot’s Diner’s roots are based in New Orleans, where it started as a small diner and grew into a popular chain that’s spread westward through Jefferson Parish and now into St. John.

The new eateries are another signal of St. John Parish’s rapid growth, and follow on the heels of several recent restaurant openings, including Mocha Chino’s, Sicily’s and Raising Cane’s.