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ORAL HISTORY

David Billeaud

David Billeaud grew up in his Cajun family’s grocery and butchery, started by his great-grandfather Marshall Billeaud, in Broussard, Louisiana. He started working with food at a young age; he remembers deboning and prepping pork chops and steaks to sale as soon as he was tall enough to “reach the meat block.” David opened up T-Coon’s in 1993, naming the restaurant after his father’s childhood nickname; he was “mischievous as a coon” (“T” is used as a diminutive in Cajun French). David serves what he’s deemed Zydeco cooking. For breakfast there’s brisket, pork roast, and crawfish omelets; all of the breads are homemade and freshly baked. The plate lunch special changes daily: smothered rabbit on Monday, short rib fricassee on Tuesday, Wednesday’s stuffed pork chops and smothered chicken and okra, Thursday’s smothered turkey wings, and catfish courtbouillon to end the work week. The catfish in the courtbouillon is, in season, hyper-local, caught daily on David’s bamboo lines in the surrounding Vermilion Bay. A virtuoso hunter and fisherman, David lines the walls of T-Coon’s with trophies and photographs (and a stuffed raccoon’s behind) from his and his customers’ adventures in the “Sportman’s Paradise” that is Louisiana.