Cajun-themed restaurant prepping to serve up ‘best on the street’ cuisine
26 Aug 2020
Downtown, Small Business, news
Dalondo Moultrie The Seguin Gazette
With an eye on providing sit-down dining and a bit more economic rejuvenation to downtown Seguin, an investment group has plans for bringing businesses into the Park Plaza Seguin building.
The Nolte Street Collective recently announced intentions to locate a restaurant called Voodoo Daddy’s Steam Kitchen into the historic building. Along with the New Orleans-style steam kitchen restaurant, the group intends even more for the space, said John Verhelst, one of the owners.
“There’s also a New Orleans-themed bar, a full bar, getting opened up here as well called Nolte Street Bar,” he said. “It’s going to be a full, what we want to call, swanky bar. It’s going to be a bar that has a New Orleans-style feel to go along with the Voodoo Daddy’s restaurant.”
Voodoo Daddy’s is considered a “quick-casual” restaurant that blends creole flavors with steam cooking based in Tempe, Arizona, according to information on the company’s website.
“‘Bonnaroo! Our favorite word, Bonnaroo! means ‘best on the street’ ... which is what we strive for every day!” the online menu reads.
The menu includes seafood pan roasts, jambalaya, gumbo, Po’ Boy sandwiches and more, according to the website.
Nolte Street Collective — consisting of Verhelst, his wife Angala and their partners George and Kristen Green — bought Park Plaza in May 2017 and have searched for a good business fit for the storied building and themselves, Verhelst said.
“We’ve had a couple different restaurants come in, a German beer garden and a Mexican restaurant approached us,” Verhelst said. “We couldn’t get the deal closed. We decided to do it on our own.”
After that, a friend introduced the quartet to Voodoo Daddy’s and its franchise group, he said. The Seguin collective went to Arizona, visited with owners of the restaurant, sampled the food and looked at a franchise structure, Verhelst said.
They decided Voodoo Daddy’s was something they and Seguin needed so they moved to establish the franchise in this city.
With Voodoo Daddy’s, the group thinks it’s filling a few voids, Verhelst said.
“The first thing is there’s not a sit-down restaurant on the square, so we needed to fill that need” he said. “The second thing is when we polled a lot of the local businesses — we just did a walk around and talked to people asking what they thought — we got a bunch of different ideas but something that would be reasonably priced, good food but a casual atmosphere. Voodoo Daddy’s fits all of those things.”
His group and other businesses located in downtown Seguin are striving to revitalize, bring life to and increase business in the area, Verhelst said.
The presence of the restaurant and bar could help accomplish those goals, Kyle Kramm, director of Seguin’s Main Street and Convention & Visitor’s Bureau said.
Voodoo Daddy’s, when it opens, will be the first sit-down restaurant right off the square, Kramm said. It will compliment area eateries like Amy’s & Cathy’s Takeout and Court Street Coffee Shop, both of which specialize in different food services.
Amy’s & Cathy’s, Kramm said, does mostly takeout sandwiches and Court Street Coffee specializes in salads and things like that. They all can feed off of each other, he said.
“The more we have downtown, the better,” Kramm said. “I think it’s a unique dining experience, it’ll be the first one in Texas of this franchise. I think it’s going to help bring a lot of new people to downtown Seguin. People who have not been downtown in a while, I think they will come to experience the new restaurant.”
The city is glad to have the new establishments setting up shop downtown, he said. Kramm and his staff will help the new business thrive.
Nolte Street Collective is in the process of acquiring permits for restoration of Park Plaza Seguin close to its original form, Verhelst said. The building opened in 1917 and used to be Park Plaza Hotel, he said.
Beyond a hotel, the building has been a dorm for Texas Lutheran University, a hospital, an apartment building, a hotel again, a restaurant and had office space on the upper floors, Verhelst said.
Construction is expected to be complete within six to eight weeks and owners are looking at an early spring 2021 opening, he said.
“We’re revitalizing it back to the original 1917 feel,” Verhelst said. “The main reason is because the building was beautiful and we want to restore it back to that original beauty and give the town something to be proud of.
“I think people should be excited because it’s going to be a local place they can walk to from anywhere downtown, there are reasonable prices and a large variety of different foods in a nice and comfortable environment that hasn’t been on the square in a long time.”
Dalondo Moultrie is the assistant managing editor of the Seguin Gazette. You can e-mail him at dalondo.moultrie@seguingazette.com
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