Heart of Louisiana: Zydeco breakfast in Breaux Bridge

BREAUX BRIDGE, LA (WVUE) - For couples who like dancing to live zydeco music, it's a breakfast worth getting up early for in the town of Breaux Bridge. The zydeco breakfast has been around for years, but if you haven't been in a while, it has moved to a new home.

The line along the sidewalk in Breaux Bridge is a good reason not to stay out too late on Friday night. Because the music and dancing starts early Saturday morning. And as soon as zydeco band leader Geno Delafose starts playing his accordion, the feet start moving.

"And it's different to see all of my fans in the morning as opposed to seeing them at night and in a club scene," Delafose said. "We watched them eat breakfast and dancing going on and it's just wonderful.

This is the zydeo breakfast at Buck and Johnny's, a pizzeria turned restaurant and Cajun music hall that filled an abandoned building left over from a car dealership that closed in the 1960s.

"It was opened up as a Chevrolet dealership. Where we're sitting right now in the filling station, this is where they pump gas. That's why we call it the filling station," said Coatney Raymond.

Raymond is one of the owners. And as the zydeco plays and plates of etouffe fly out of the kitchen, she works the crowd.

"I like to visit with everybody," she said. "Anyone that walks in that door I will touch."

Most people like to sleep late on Saturday, but to get in here you got to be in line at 7 a.m.

"Well, like today we're having Geno Delafose, so you need to be in line for 7 o'clock," Raymond said

The zydeco breakfast actually started at another Breaux Bridge restaurant, but when the music stopped a couple of blocks away, Buck and Johnny's took over.

"I didn't want to lose this to another surrounding city. I felt that this was Breaux Bridge. I felt this was the Cajun culture, and it represented us better than any other city that could do that," Raymond said.

Geno Delafose started playing the rubboard in his dad's zydeco band at age 7. At 10, he was playing the drums, and since age 13 he's been pumping the high energy music out of his accordion.

Puts some pep in your step and dip in your hip music, and it's just a good time music, a happy music," he said.

And the packed dance floor backs that up.

"I want them to make their day," Ryamond said. "It pumps me  up when I see them have that much fun."

So if you are looking for a true zydeco experience that mixes breakfast and dancing, and you don't mind getting an early start to your Saturday, you should start your weekend in Breaux Bridge.

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