By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

VACHERIE — On any given day, Thomas Breaux spends time with his wife, prepares delicious cuisine and chats up visitors from all around the world.

He wouldn’t have it any other way. Perhaps few would.

But this is the reality for Breaux, the owner of B & C Seafood Market and Cajun Restaurant in Vacherie.

There, Breaux and his wife, Geneva, cook, hold court with customers, cook some more, and oversee the operations of their family business, which also involves the Breaux’s son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren in different capacities.

Located near Laura Plantation, the restaurant typically brings in a number of tourists from all regions of the world — in one area of the restaurant the Breauxs proudly have a display of dollars from individual foreign countries.

“Every one of them was paid by someone,” said Breaux. “We’ve had people from everywhere in the world … I like meeting them, talking with them. Especially in a little place like this. You learn a lot.”

As usually is the case with a success story, there were struggles along the way.

Breaux, who hails from Raceland originally, began his professional journey at Pleasure Bend in the late 1960s, buying fish products for commercial fishermen.

After a while, his efforts gained enough ground that he made the decision to expand — but he did not yet have enough money to do so. Breaux took on a business partner who owned his own venture in Norco, and the two opened B & C’s as a wholesale seafood market in Pleasure Bend — that original site is where Breaux makes his home, currently.

But at the time, the area was underdeveloped. There was just one electric line and B & C’s had no phone and limited water. The Breauxs were originally one of just three families to live in that area.

“To use the telephone to communicate, I’d have to travel a mile to my mother’s,” said Breaux. “After a while, (his partner) got tired of driving that long shell road to get to our place, and he asked me to buy him out.”

There was trepidation at first.

“It was a hard beginning … I was very concerned, because I understood it was all on me,” said Breaux. “But deep down, I knew I could make it work by myself.”

Eventually, Breaux expanded the business, buying a building in Vacherie along River Road, one that had been a drug store but was abandoned.

“I came here because of the growing population of people,” said Breaux. “He started leasing it to me, then he decided to sell it.”

A major turning point, one that necessitated the expansion, came upon the opening of Laura Plantation for touring in the 1980s.

Breaux had started serving hamburgers in the early stages of his business’ transition to becoming a restaurant. But once the steady flow of tourists and plantation visitors became reality, he again realized that it was time to grow.

“I’d say I get 90 percent of the tourists,” said Breaux. “We started getting people from all over the world.”

He’s expanded his restaurant multiple times since then to accommodate the growing business while continuing to run a wholesale seafood business from his home.

While Geneva runs the kitchen and is responsible for most of the cooking, Breaux has a number of set dishes that he specializes in, including stews and gumbos.

He said his most popular offering has been his seafood gumbo.

“I probably get more compliments on that than anything,” he said. “In my earlier years, a magazine came in and at the time, we weren’t using dishes. We were using Styrofoam bowls. And they said that it was the best gumbo they’d ever had in a Styrofoam bowl.”

A wrinkle thrown into B & C’s everyday activities comes on Saturdays between noon and 4 p.m., when local musicians will come in and entertain — there are instruments on hand, like a guitar and violin, already on display and ready to use.”

“It’s something different that we enjoy, something to break up the monotony,” Breaux said.

Breaux, now 66, said he and his wife will continue to do what they do as long as their health allows.

Still, they’re planning ahead for when the day comes that this won’t be the case, when he said that either selling the business or handing it off within the family becomes an option. They’ve recently begun working with a new chef, Hue Watson, showing him the ropes around the restaurant.

That forward planning basically ensures that B & C will remain for years to come, to be enjoyed by locals and tourists alike.

“We’re proud of the way we do our food,” said Breaux. “Hearing the nice things people tell us, it’s gives you a good feeling.”