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ORAL HISTORY

Madonna Broussard

Madonna Broussard knows her rice and gravy. A third-generation restaurant owner, Madonna is the granddaughter of Laura Broussard, who opened the original Laura’s in her own house on a secluded Northside Lafayette back street. Opened in 1968—making it perhaps the first plate lunch house in Lafayette—Laura’s served stuffed turkey wings, fried pork chops, and fried catfish and chicken. Madonna’s mother Dorothy continued the Laura’s legacy, while today her daughter serves many of the same dishes her grandmother did: spicy baked turkey wings (you’re lucky if you get one with crackling on top), enormous crispy pork chops, and just about the darkest, brownest gravy (topping rice and simmering meatballs) around. With the next generation of Broussard-family working in the lunch house, Madonna is looking forward to a future blessed with, in her words, a “Laura’s III, IV, and V.”