I was there for dinner early October, and the waitress came to the table and said we were the last customers, and I thought, okay they are closing for the evening and they want us to move along. Got to talking to her and she clarified that we were literally the last customers. They were shutting down. I really liked the food and service but the atmosphere wasn't great for us.

It all started with a walk last summer. Dau Xiong and his wife Maria Nguyen were out for a stroll in their hometown of Lafayette when they saw a restaurant up for sale on the outer edge of Old Town. While the two are both restaurant industry vets—Xiong is a chef, and the couple previously owned a fast-casual franchise—they’d never served their own food: the Hmong cuisine Xiong grew up eating, along with the Cajun seafood boils his family loved.