Lake Charles’ Unique Economy Makes 24-Hour Service Attractive For Many Local Businesses
By Brad Goins
Lake Charles — and its nearby metropolitan areas — is in a transitional stage in which some people still think of it as a small town and some think of it as something bigger.
If you still think of it as a small town, you may be surprised to learn just how many small local businesses operate 24 hours a day here.
Furthermore, these businesses aren’t the stereotypical late night dives you may have seen portrayed in Edward Hopper’s famous painting Night Hawks or in numerous film noirs — hash houses where the stranger who slouches in, slumps down over the bar and orders a cup of coffee is just as likely to be a trouble maker as a jolly old soul.
No — small businesses in the L.C. metro area are open at 3 am because business at 3 am is good. To quote Jill of KD’s Diner, “It’s crazy, the amount of customers who are out at that time.”
How is one to account for this fantastic state of affairs? One does so by explaining that there’s nothing fantastic about it, and that, in fact, it makes perfect sense.
Chris Culotte of My Place American Pub
There’s a story behind the open-all-night story, and that’s the story of Lake Charles’ multi-pronged economy. We hear over and over that the L.C. economy is built on several key foundations: among them tourism (and especially gaming) and the massive petrochemical complex.
It’s that unusual economic structure that creates the small 24-hour business. Employees of many bars and restaurants leave work at 2 am because that’s when their places of employment close. Shifts for many plant workers also end at 2 am. There’s even a small army of local nurses who end their work day at 2 in the AM.
This crowd of workers is known as “the service industry” by those who are themselves employees in the tourism, entertainment and service businesses.
And many of these people are just as likely as others to want to wind down in a public, communal place after they finish their work day.
“Their 2 am is our 5 pm,” says co-owner Chris Culotta of My Place American Pub, which never closes. “They’re just looking to unwind.”
Overall, says Culotta, even in the wee hours of the morning, “It’s pretty relaxed” in the bar.
Michelle Casteel, who works the overnight shift at the 24-hour Linda’s Lounge, also describes an environment that’s relaxed — primarily because of the attributes of the service industry clientele. “They’re friendly; they’re easy to wait on — know what they want; they’re good tippers.”
Because many of these people are themselves experienced in restaurant and bar work, they understand the stresses any server is under and don’t make unreasonable demands. They know better than to fine-tune an already complicated order when a place is busy. They know that it’s not cool to expect orders to appear in two minutes when every seat in the house is taken.
Still, once in a while, some drifter must occasionally wander in at 3 or 4, looking for a place where he can rant or rave. Culotta keeps the atmosphere of My Place consistently mellow by having a stringent zero tolerance policy and enforcing it. “If you start trouble,” he says, “you’re out for life.”
Like other all-night places, Linda’s Lounge offers perks to employees in the service industry. As many other places do, Linda’s features a service industries night. The bar also provides these clients with code words that entitle them to drink specials. The code words change, just as they do in spy movies — “We switch it up,” says Casteel.
A drink especially favored by the late night crew at Linda’s is the bar’s colorful red, white and blue Bomb Pop. It’s a potent drink that’s usually served with two straws. “It’s very sweet,” says Casteel. “It’s good. One’s not enough and two’s too many.”
Location
If the around-the-clock bar is such a good business model, why don’t more bars expand their hours? Well, the model might not be a good one for all bars. One key issue is this: is the bar in question located near the places where service industry workers are employed?
Culotta reckons My Place sees a lot of success because of its location. “We’re closer to the casinos,” he says. And they’re not too far from most of the plants. “Anybody [in a similar location] could really do it.”
Just a few blocks east on Prien Lake Road, the 24-hour Cajun Geaux’s proves his point. Within feet of these two bars are two 24-hour restaurants: KD’s Diner and Pitt Grill, the latter of which is open around the clock Tuesday through Saturday. And the Pitt Grill in Sulphur is open 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays.
Demands Of The Job
Culotta became co-owner of My Place four years ago, when it was already a 24-hour venue. When the full implications of his decision hit home, he wondered, “What did I get myself into?”
Four years later, he still says, “It takes a special breed to run [a 24-hour business].” Just for starters, no bar-owner, no matter how hard-working he may be, can work 24 hours a day. As a result, says Culotta, “You have to make sure your staff is one you can trust.” That’s a tough task even in a bar or restaurant with much shorter hours.
As owner, says Culotta, “You’re on call 24 hours.” Even if he gets called to the bar for a 3 am emergency, he still has to show up for his regular job at 8 am to ensure the paperwork gets done and the bar gets stocked.
Casteel concurs that the 24-hour business is a tough one. “It’s quite a challenge,” she says.
One problem that’s high on her list: “there’s no down time.” That means, for one thing, there’s never any time for the one thing that keeps a bar or any other human creation in good condition: maintenance. Maintenance can’t be done when clients are in the bar, and they’re always in Linda’s Lounge.
During the Lake Area’s long hot period, air conditioning never gets down time for maintenance or even to let the motor cool off for a while. During the long, hot months “you’ll never get it to 72 in here,” says Casteel. One reason that’s important is that one of the trademarks of Linda’s Lounge is its practice of serving beers from tubs filled with ice.
Linda’s closes on Sunday, as local ordinances prohibit the public serving of alcohol on Sundays. That gap in the 24-hour schedule is by default the bar’s only time for maintenance. Casteel recalls a recent Sunday night spent ripping up the carpet and sanding the floor. The work started at midnight on Sunday and went straight through until the bar reopened for business. The crew was exhausted after working straight through the job. But the bar was able to open on time.
‘People Can Be Loud’
Colin Ramsey already had a good deal of experience working in bars and restaurants in Los Angeles before he came to Lake Charles in 2007. He says the graveyard shift creates “a much different environment” in a restaurant than in a bar. In a bar, he says, “if somebody gets unruly, you just take ‘em out.” Alternatively, the bartender can simply ignore the offender.
Colin Ramsey of KD’s
Things might not be so simple at an overnight restaurant like KD’s, where Ramsey has been overnight manager for three years. He says if a patron “snaps at” him, he can exercise the right to refuse service. But if the patron is clever enough to contact the manager, he may wind up getting served anyway.
Ramsey also tries to be realistic about the nature of the late-night clientele at KD’s. He knows that some who come in will have been drinking for a while. KD’s makes the concessions it can. Ramsey says it’s a “party restaurant … They can come to KD’s and be loud. We let people get away with a lot more than other restaurants.”
Ramsey says the restaurant will, on occasion, have the walk-in who may not have been drinking at all, but who wants to act out at a time when traffic is sparse. “It has definitely happened,” he says. But it’s not a common occurrence. In fact, he says the restaurant could, if it wanted, have a sign for the number of days since a customer created a scene, just as some businesses have signs about the number of days that have passed since a workplace accident.
Ramsey acknowledges the large number of customers who work for casinos and plants, and agrees that small businesses are unlikely to be open overnight if they’re located far away from these businesses. What seems different from a bar is that Ramsey is just as focused on the clients who are on their way to the plants as those who are getting off. Some such workers will start coming in as early as 4 am to get breakfast before work. He also notes a wave of customers that get off casino work at 4 am — a group he especially likes because they haven’t been drinking.
“We know which people are going to come in and when,” he says. Places like KD’s work hand in hand with local all-night bars. In fact, he says, KD’s follows the schedules and specials of local bars to predict just when certain groups will make it to KD’s on certain nights.
No one’s ever accused KD’s of being too roomy. Ramsey says the venue has 10 tables and 9 bar slots. But he says that on some late nights — for instance, Sundays — it is quite easy to get an empty table.
Like others in this game, Ramsey seems almost enamored of his job. “I really like it here,” he says. “Overall, it’s much better than it’s worse.”
Again, I suspect there’s a relation between the job and the worker’s personality. “I’m a night person. It’s a night owl [thing]. I function at a higher rate at night.”
The same things can probably be said of a good number of KD’s customers. At any rate, Ramsey thinks the venue offers a solid option for those who get hungry before other places are open. “It’s solid food for a good price and you get it quick.”
‘No Juicy Details’
One type of 24-hour business you might not have thought of is the local fitness club. At least four in the L.C. metro area offer services around the clock.
Cheyanna Glyenn of Christus Louisiana Athletic Club
One key difference between the fitness clubs and the other businesses we’ve looked at is that fitness clubs are not staffed all night long. After a certain hour, club members, or those who have passes, swipe a card or type in a code to get in the building.
The targeted clientele is much as it would be for an all-night restaurant. Christus Louisiana Athletic Club manager Cheyanna Glyenn says the club sees “a lot of people from plants who work lots of different shifts.”
It’s a little hard for me to imagine that anyone would go into a fitness club at 3 in the morning for the purpose of creating mayhem. But of course, anyone can run into unexpected trouble when he’s doing strenuous exercise.
Like most clubs, Christus Louisiana keeps security cameras running. Another 24-hour operation, Anytime Fitness, supplements its cameras with a number of panic buttons placed throughout the building. The club also gives its patrons the option of wearing security necklaces. These necklaces are effective all the way to the road outside the building, and patrons can take them home overnight if they choose.
These security measures seem to keep fitness clubs quiet — staff or no staff. “We never have any issues or problems,” says Broussard. “Nothing weird has ever happened.” Glyenn echoes the sentiment; there are, she says, “no juicy details.”
Aside from the lack of on-site staff, overnight clubs seem to operate in the late night in much the same way as they operate during the daylight. At Anytime Fitness, late-night patrons have access not just to water, showers and fresh towels, but also to the very same vending options they have during the day.
‘It’s Always Been A Thing’
Bruce Broussard of Anytime Fitness
The unique economy that has developed in the Lake Charles area has kept the 24-hour small business a going concern for some time. When Culotta bought My Place four years ago, he was competing with even more 24-hour-a-day bars, as both Nate’s and Annie’s were serving around the clock at that time. “It’s always been a thing,” he says.
People involved in the 24-hour business seem to be attracted to it for some reason; perhaps they just have the right personality for it. Culotta says he’ll stick with it “as long as my body will allow me.”
And as much as all of these around-the-clock venues are geared to the service industry, they’re by no means a members-only club. “We’re basically just here for everybody,” says My Place’s Culotta. Similar universal sentiments are uttered by KD’s Ramsey, who says to the public in general: “Come in and have a good time. That’s what we’re here for.”
These are comforting words not just for late-night workers, but also for insomniacs, night owls or folks who just like to take their relaxation and refreshment after hours.
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