Holy Cow - Huge tourism news for Baton Rouge in 2025! A record setting 9.4 million people visited Baton Rouge in 2025 and spent a record $1.3 billion dollars in our city. This in turn supports over 42,000 jobs in the Greater Baton Rouge metropolitan area. Here are some additional stats - Meetings/Conventions/Sporting events booked 89,000 room nights 244 individual events 315,000 attendees $193 million dollar impact The United States Bowling Conference held their annual gath

I had lunch last week at one of my very favorite lunch spots - Martin Wine Cellar (Moss Side Lane) in Baton Rouge - 70808! This place is truly a hidden gem. Martin Wine Cellar initially opened in New Orleans as a wine/spirits shop with a deli. They've since expanded to Baton Rouge and I can't get enough of their food! All the lunch food is made fresh to order - it really is some of the freshest food that I've had in Baton Rouge. Price and portion sizes are great as I alway

Had a great Friday night dinner at one of the best restaurants in all of Baton Rouge - DiGiulio Brothers Italian Restaurant - 70808! The restaurant was packed as usual and we sat up at the bar to eat and people watch. I had the Chicken Avezzano which is a fried chicken breast, fried eggplant medallions and melted cheese served with a side of pasta and red sauce. Dinner was off the charts good as usual and the company and people watching was great as well! Highly recommend th

I finished up the month of April with 98 total running miles! And that includes 4 straight down days with no running due to some allergy nonsense that blew in earlier this month. That gives me a total of 366 miles run year to date - about 92 miles per month average. I'm now up to where ideally I'd like to be in terms of the number of miles I'd like to average per month for the balance of the year which is 92 miles. It was a good running month as it included one competitive

Finished up another great lunch with my Dad at Tio Javi's in Baton Rouge - 70808! It's one of our very favorite restaurants and one of the only places in Baton Rouge that you can get really good, traditional Tex-Mex. My family is originally from Texas so we all grew up eating Tex-Mex. It can be a challenge to find the good stuff here in Baton Rouge, but Tio Javi's always delivers. This restaurant was originally a Ninfa's Restaurant which is a Houston based chain. The resta

The East Baton Rouge Parish Planning Commission just approved the next phase of development at THE BLVD at Harding in Baton Rouge - 70807! A full service grocery store along with additional retail and other business will be part of this 100,000 sf development located at the intersections of Harding and Howell Boulevards. The grocery store is expected to be branded as a Fresh Express store and is being built in a partnership with Associated Grocers. This will bring much nee

Today was the last of the 'Big 3' competitive races in Baton Rouge that I run every year. I ran the OLOL Tiger 10K this morning and set a new personal best time of 48.42! This was the 3rd race in a row that I've run a personal best time and I shaved about 28 seconds off of my previous best time! This a hugely popular race in Baton Rouge. All 3 of the related races sold out with about 6,600 total runners registered. There were 3,100 runners registered for the 10K, 2,900 f

March 2026 is in the books and it was a good running month with 100 total miles! That gives me a total of 268 miles run year to date - about 90 miles per month average. My overall goal for the year is to average 92 miles per month, so I'm on track to meet that number. I'm looking forward to April as I have a 10K race coming up mid-month. The OLOL Tiger 10K will be on April 19th and I'm hoping to improve on my last 10K run time during the Mardi Gras Mambo 10K! Are you intere

Lipsey's, who has called the Baton Rouge Area home for nearly 75 years, has announced groundbreaking for their new corporate headquarters and a new, high-tech distribution center located on Highland Rd in St George, LA! This new facility will encompass nearly 265,000 sf of space and will allow for expanded hiring at the corporate office level as well as integrate advanced logistics and workflow design, expanded storage capacity, and upgraded technology infrastructure in the n

My Dad turned 84 today and we celebrated in style at one of our favorite restaurants in Baton Rouge - Willie's on Coursey Dr. As you will see from the pictures of our lunch this place totally rocks!! First picture is the onion rings appetizer - expertly battered and fried and banging remoulade sauce for dipping. Next picture is the fried fish entree - 4 fried shrimp, 3 fried catfish fillets, jalapeno hush puppies and french fries - just an amazing plate of food! And it cam

Studyville Enterprises has announced a substantial expansion of their workforce in Baton Rouge, LA! They are an education technology company that develops digital platforms to allow schools across the country to track tutoring performance and to strengthen literacy instruction. Studyville Enterprises was born in Louisiana in 2020 and their corporate headquarters is located on Jefferson Hwy in Baton Rouge. This expansion announcement will not only retain 12 current jobs, BUT

I finished up February 2026 with 68 running miles. Not great but not too bad It was an odd month. The weather didn't cooperate for a few days, I had my niece's wedding that disrupted a couple of days of running and there were about 4 days that I flat out was lazy and didn't run when I should have been out there:) Nonetheless, the year has started off quite strongly in terms of running with 168 total miles in the book! I'll take it and head into March ready to roll. Are you

The City of Baton Rouge just announced a huge, 20 Year Agreement with American Cruise Lines to bring cruise ship dockings back to downtown Baton Rouge!. It is estimated that this will inject at least $25,000,000 into the Baton Rouge economy throughout the life of this agreement. As an added benefit, American Cruise Lines will be spending around $2,000,000 to refurbish the landing dock that their ships will use to dock downtown. This dock had fallen into disrepair over the y

Very special lunch today with my Dad as today would have been my parent's 61's wedding anniversary. We celebrated at Mestizos which was one of my mother's favorite restaurants! Pictured above is the queso with ground beef appetizer. This is my father's favorite lunch dish - the grilled redfish with rice and seasoned vegetables. My mother was a taco girl and she'd nearly always get some sort of a taco for lunch here. This is my go-to lunch dish! I order the a la carte bee

The Baton Rouge Airport reported a record traffic count of 847,000 passengers in 2025! This is the second consecutive year of record traffic counts with the Airport reporting 844,000 passengers served in 2024. This record passenger count comes on the heels of a parking lot enhancement program that was rolled out earlier in the year and sets the stage for a terminal modernization project that will kick off later in 2026. This airport traffic news further underscores the posit

My favorite pet store - Parish Pets - has relocated to a new building on Government St in Mid-City Baton Rouge 70806! They previously were located on N Foster, but elected to relocate into a bigger, better and much higher profile location right smack in the middle of Government St. They completely gutted and remodeled a building that had become an eyesore into one that is beautiful on the inside and out! Plenty of parking and a huge, grassed & fenced in backyard are some of

Another great dinner at Mestizos Restaurant with some friends over the weekend! They were all heading out to the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Ball later on in the evening, but I met them for dinner and a margarita on their way downtown. Mestizo's is probably my very favorite restaurant in all of Baton Rouge. The food and margarita quality is second to none and the atmosphere in the restaurant just can't be beat! The ground beef queso and the beef/bean burrito with rice and bean

January 2026 is in the books and I clocked 100 miles for the month! January weather can be quite unpredictable and not conducive to running, but it generally cooperated up until the last week or so. I ran in a Quarter Marathon and a 10K this month and my last competitive race for the year isn't until mid-April. Are you interested in buying or selling a home? I'd love to visit with you, no pressure! Call, text or e-mail me. Click on this link to see all homes currently avail

Every year - during Mardi Gras - the Mardi Gras Mambo 10K/15K is run. It's a super fun race that begins downtown, runs through the Garden District & part of Mid-City before finishing up back downtown. This year's race was pretty challenging from a weather perspective. The wind chill during the race was 15 degrees and the actual temperature never got above 28 degrees! The weather tamped down the attendance a bit, but there were still 500 runners that finished the 10K and ov

I had a chance to spend a couple of hours last week with some close family & friends at The Tipsy Librarian and had a amazing experience! They are physically located at Towne Center and have a super inviting & well decorated space for their public & private events. They'll also come to your house to host a private event if you wish. If you've ever wanted to better understand the science behind craft cocktails and to try your hand at making craft cocktails - you need to go to