Bon Appetit

On Friday we decided to eat our lunch at Bon Appetit. I told you guys about this great cajun restaurant in downtown Clarksburg. We arrived around 2 P.M. and was told they were closing early because they were catering 150 folks for a Christmas party. I am happy that they are finding success. Hope the business continues to grow since they have excellent and resonable meals. I am including portions of the AP article that was printed in the Charleton Gazette on Saturday.


CLARKSBURG, W.Va. -- It's midmorning at Bon Appetit, and the beignets are long gone. Behind a Plexiglas wall, a cook is chopping vegetables for lunch. Music heavy with brass is blaring, and Chef LeRoy Crump Jr. is rushing about with cell phone in hand, periodically stepping outdoors to greet a passer-by and tout the special, a Cajun shrimp cream pasta.



The sign above his 2-week-old restaurant promises "Authentic New Orleans Cuisine and Spirits" - in small-town West Virginia, 1,000 miles from the French Quarter.
After Hurricane Katrina destroyed his New Orleans home and restaurant, Crump traveled to Atlanta, then Daytona Beach, Fla. A chance encounter with a hotel guest who smelled Crump's cooking lured him to Clarksburg, a town of 17,000 in a state he'd barely heard of.


He recalls driving through Virginia, lost in the dark. Shortly after a trooper told him he needed West Virginia, the next state over, he started seeing mountains. "I thought 'Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into?'" he remembers with a laugh.



And now? "I have customers now who say 'If you ever try to leave, we will have the State Police stop you on the interstate. You will not get out of town.'"





Like other displaced Mississippi and Louisiana residents, Crump has taken root in an unlikely place, bringing along the tastes of home and the ability to share them. From Nevada to West Virginia, professional and amateur chefs alike are sharing Cajun and Creole fare with folks who still consider it exotic.




Don Jackson, the tourist Crump met while watching a shuttle launch in Florida, opened his home kitchen the day Crump arrived. Together, they cooked 40 gallons of jambalaya and seafood gumbo, loaded up an El Camino and drove around selling $2 bowls.


Two weeks later, Crump met a video poker bar operator with a full kitchen.


"I started letting people know I was going to open up on the corner at Ray-Ray's, and they said 'I'll be there,'" Crump recalls. "And I'll be darned, the place was packed."
He quickly outgrew it, moving into a 50-seat place with a landlord who offered two months rent free.


That's where Stephen McIntire ate his first bite of Cajun food, a dish of creamy red beans and rice. He became a regular, then a business partner.


Together, they opened Bon Appetit, which employs 18 and can seat 500 in a former McCrory's department store. They order the mix to make beignets - a square of dough, deep fried and dusted with powdered sugar - and coffee from New Orleans' famous Cafe du Monde, and seafood from the Gulf Coast.


Crump's crawfish arrive alive, and he likes to boil them in a pot on the sidewalk for all to see.


"Honestly, I have lost almost 15 pounds with worry and fear, thinking 'Oh my God, is this the right thing? Are people going to come in?'" Crump says. "It was worry for naught. ... When most people leave, their bellies are full, they've got a to-go box and they're thinking 'When's the next time we can come eat?'"