A new Cajun and Creole kitchen has settled into Old Town Lafayette, and its gumbo starts with 45 minutes of nonstop stirring before anything else happens. Remi's Cajun Creole Cafe opened this summer at 211 N. Public Road, bringing scratch-made Southern comfort food, cocktails, and live music to a 60-seat space in the heart of the historic downtown strip.
The restaurant is the work of owner Dara Sanchez-Mack, who brought 15 years of hospitality experience to the project, according to Axios. Per Remi's Cajun Creole Cafe, Sanchez-Mack was born in the Canary Islands to a Spanish father and an American mother. Axios describes Remi's as a community gathering space in Lafayette's downtown.
Running the kitchen is Executive Chef Napoleon Lewis, a Colorado native, Axios reports. Lewis's standards center on bold flavors, honored tradition, and no shortcuts, according to the restaurant's site. Every batch of gumbo begins with that lengthy roux-making process, a hallmark of the restaurant's traditional scratch cooking methods. The cafe operates five days a week and emphasizes scratch cooking.
A Kitchen Built on Classical Technique
Lewis works alongside Sous Chef Antonio Ramon Alorio, who trained at the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts after nine years spent behind the line and at the butcher's block. The site notes that Alorio brings Caribbean influence and classical butchery techniques to the menu.
The menu itself reads like a tour of the Gulf Coast: gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, shrimp and grits, po'boys, and muffulettas all appear, alongside New Orleans BBQ shrimp, fried green tomato BLTs, Creole loaded fries, and Voodoo Wings finished in a sticky, sweet-and-spicy Cajun sauce, per Axios. Axios reporter Mitchell Byars ordered the Catfish Pontchartrain during a visit and described it as moist, flaky fish served in a flavorful sauce.
Local food writer John Lehndorff had flagged the concept over a year earlier, reporting in an August 2025 dining roundup for the Boulder Reporting Lab that a new Cajun restaurant and jazz club concept was in the works for 211 N. Public Road. That timeline puts roughly a year between the initial announcement and the cafe's actual summer 2026 opening.
A Downtown Gathering Place
Beyond the plates, the restaurant's menu says its kitchen uses beef tallow for all frying.
Remi's is open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday through Monday and closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The cafe offers Southern hospitality, music, and events as a community gathering place.
A Public Road Address
Movoto's listing for 211 N. Public Road describes a 1,872-square-foot property and displays a value of $550,000.
The opening also lands amid steady growth for Old Town Lafayette, which balances 1,640 acres of open space and 20 miles of trails against a competitive 2026 housing market where median home sales reach approximately $636,000, according to data cited by Navigate Realty. Remi's adds another scratch-made kitchen to the corridor along North Public Road.
