Opelousas Has an Absurd Amount of Potential. Almost Nobody Is Taking It.

[00:00:00] Speaker A: What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Parish Circuit. Today we're talking about the positive. Positive. Remember that? Positive. Encouraging. Amazing. Well, not quite like that, but sort of. There's a lot of cool things that have been going on in the city of Opelousis for the last, like, six months, right? [00:00:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:23] Speaker A: Even the last couple years, there's, like, cool things moving in good directions. So. So this is something that I said to somebody whenever we moved here 10 years ago. Appaloosas has an absurd amount of potential. An absurd amount of potential. Businesses are cheap. It's relatively inexpensive to live here. Cost of living is low. Like renting business spaces is what I mean. Businesses, that type of stuff. You can get in here for not a lot of money and run a business like we do, and we serve people all over the country with it. There's a lot of potential to operate and run and have opportunity for businesses here. You can buy a house for less than $100,000, David. And I don't mean a terrible house. I mean a decent house. I mean, it needs work. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. A little work needs to be done. [00:01:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Elbow grease. But you can get in for less than 100 grand. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Yep. [00:01:10] Speaker A: That's crazy. And yet here we are. So what we wanted to do today is just kind of talk through that. Talk through. What are some of the cool things that are going on now, David, you still. You live, like, right in the heart, right. Of the historic district of. [00:01:24] Speaker B: You were. Yeah. If you were to put, like, a pinpoint in the center of Opelousis, that's your house. [00:01:29] Speaker A: You'd be right there. Yeah. So talk about that. Like, what are some cool things that you've seen? [00:01:34] Speaker B: Yes, I've lived in Opelousis for 13 years now. I've lived in smack dab middle of Appaloosas for nine years. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Nice. Almost a whole decade. That is crazy. Yeah. [00:01:43] Speaker B: I just met one of my new neighbors last night. We were out biking and jogging with the family. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Like, he just moved in. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Recently. But there'd been this old house on the corner, one of the corners there that had kind of just been overgrown for years and years. But over the last couple months, I've noticed this guy out there hustling. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Oh, I saw that house. Yeah, I know the exact house you're talking about. [00:02:02] Speaker B: Brick house. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:03] Speaker B: And I mean, he filled up. He's filled up three or four of those massive dump trailers. [00:02:08] Speaker A: Wow. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Like three. Like three or four full dump trailers with yard debris and trash from the house and all this stuff. And it's just a beautiful house. And he's doing the work to get the yard cleaned up and fixing up the house. [00:02:21] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Young family, all that stuff. But. But that's not the only. It was fun to get to meet them and all that. So I was fresh in my mind. But just like going around the historic district, district recently, there's a lot of that going on. I've been encouraged recently with all the houses being painted, all the renovations going on, home updates. I do feel like, you know, 10 years ago, five years, 10 years ago, it was easy to get discouraged with the direction of the historic district. Maybe in particular, maybe Opelousis in general, just because there were so many houses just getting older, dilapidating. And still there are a lot that are just tear downs at this point. [00:03:01] Speaker A: Sure. [00:03:02] Speaker B: But it's been cool. I think within the last half a year, I've just noticed a lot of work being done. And that encouraged me. That excites me. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Well, where nobody else wants to be, there's opportunity for somebody. [00:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:16] Speaker A: So, you know, I use this illustration all the time. Whenever we started our business, part of the reason that we started it and were able to have so much success so quickly is because nobody else wanted to. There was nobody doing what we did in Appaloosa's Saint Legend parish. There just wasn't. And so we started a marketing company for Appaloosas. And you know what? It worked like. We had tons of success early on because we were the only people in town doing it now. Then people started to realize that's what was happening. And other folks put out their shingles as a result of that. [00:03:48] Speaker B: Free market, baby. [00:03:49] Speaker A: Yeah, free market. Make it happen. We have outlasted them, but. [00:03:54] Speaker B: And expanded the reach beyond Appaloosa. [00:03:56] Speaker A: And expanded the reach. Yeah. Considerably beyond Appaloosas. That's right. National International. The Lord has been very kind to us. But the opportunities here, if no one wants to do a job, then that means someone who does the job will do well. And if everyone operating that particular job is doing a poor job of it, then that means if somebody comes in and does a better job, they will do well. There's tons of opportunity here. There's tons of opportunity, and we can continue to take advantage. Like, we got a new coffee shop, Abacus, opened relatively recently. Remember Abacus? Right over there on Creswell. They're crushing it. Within the last couple of years, we've seen McAllisters move in the Hobby Lobby and the Chick Fil A Have opened up. My goodness. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Whataburger. [00:04:41] Speaker A: Whataburger is in town that big new Billy's. The Billy's. The Taj Mahal. Billy's right there on the corner of 190 and I 49. Like, there's tons of great things going on in the city of Appaloosas. [00:04:53] Speaker B: And then further south. Right. You had that. That loves Truck Stop. [00:04:58] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:04:58] Speaker B: And then you got. But around there, there's just been lots of development. [00:05:01] Speaker A: Lots of development happening. Yeah. Houses going up over there. There's. There are things cooking. And this. This would be my appeal to those who are listening. Don't sleep on Opelousas, man. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:05:11] Speaker A: Like, if you want to get in, man, the timer is a ticking. The timer is a ticking. I would say look around, find an opportunity and take it. We got some folks right now who are getting ready to buy houses inside of the city of Opelousas. Cheap, cheap houses, man. And they're good for what they are. They're good. And I think there's just more and more opportunity in a space like that. I would love to just, like, get my friends to continue to move here, because we develop relationships with people all over the country. A lot of them run remote businesses. Like, businesses you can run anywhere that you have an Internet, a computer. I'm like, man, I know where you can move and live on less than $50,000 a year. [00:05:57] Speaker B: Yep. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Where can you say that about right? Not many places. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Whenever a house comes up for sale nearby, I start hitting people up and like, you should move here. [00:06:09] Speaker A: You should move here. That's right. Well, I mean, you move. If you move from either of the coasts, you could sell your, you know, 1500 square foot house for a million dollars. [00:06:18] Speaker B: Sure. [00:06:19] Speaker A: And move to Saint Legit parish and build a mansion, you know? Yeah. [00:06:24] Speaker B: For some. That's not an exaggeration. [00:06:26] Speaker A: That's. No, it's not an exaggeration because we've talked to people who had the option, you know, like, that's crazy. But the opportunity is there. It's completely, absolutely there. What are some other things that we've seen pop in? [00:06:39] Speaker B: So I was gonna. I was gonna. We. Well, we were bummed to see arpeggio's close. That was. That's a sad day. [00:06:45] Speaker A: That's a sad day. I was. [00:06:47] Speaker B: For Stuart. [00:06:47] Speaker A: I love. Dude, I love a dizzy chicken. I just. I kind of want to find their breakfast burrito. I miss arpeggios. Yeah. But. [00:06:56] Speaker B: But we got some new restaurants opening, just opened up. I mean, it's Been a few weeks. [00:07:01] Speaker A: That's the buffet spot that took the palace, right? [00:07:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Breakfast and lunch buffets right down the street. [00:07:05] Speaker A: I need to go there for breakfast. They have breakfast. [00:07:07] Speaker B: They do breakfast buffet, too. Yeah, actually, I went there for lunch. It was good. I haven't been there for breakfast. [00:07:11] Speaker A: I need. I am a breakfast guy. I need to go check that out. [00:07:15] Speaker B: We should go check that out. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Oh, sold. Okay, done. It's gonna happen next week. Breakfast is happening. All right. [00:07:21] Speaker B: And then 337 barbecue. [00:07:23] Speaker A: I also love barbecue. [00:07:24] Speaker B: Open up in the old. It was Cayenne's and Frank's before that. Now it's gonna be 337 barbecue from Broussard. They're coming down. Coming up from Broussard. [00:07:31] Speaker A: Really? [00:07:32] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a 337 barbecue in Broussard already. And they're opening up a second location in Appaloosa. [00:07:37] Speaker A: Oh, dang. [00:07:37] Speaker B: They know what they're doing. [00:07:38] Speaker A: I'm about to tear this up then. Okay, so what. What kind of barbecue is it? Is it, like, Texas style? I'm sure it's Texas style. We don't know, Stuart. [00:07:46] Speaker B: I don't care. [00:07:47] Speaker A: Okay? [00:07:48] Speaker B: I don't say that in a flippant. I say I'm gonna go eat the food. No matter what kind. No matter what kind of. [00:07:55] Speaker A: And you know, this is not an. Appaloosa is a little bit south. In Sunset, we've got the new brewery that's opened up. Oh, yeah, Sunset Brewery. [00:08:01] Speaker B: Love it. [00:08:01] Speaker A: I love that spot, man. We need a brewery proper in the city of Appaloosas. Yes, I would. [00:08:06] Speaker B: Investors hear this. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Dude, listen, man, like, you want to. There's literally two buildings in the downtown block of Opelousas that are adjacent. No, they're. They're actually right next to each other and across the street from the courthouse. You could buy both of them at the same time for less than 50 grand. [00:08:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:22] Speaker A: And have this massive space. You could do all kinds of stuff with that spot. [00:08:26] Speaker B: And you have to put in a decent amount of money to get it where it needs to be. But, like, just to get the properties and the building. [00:08:31] Speaker A: I mean, there's so much opportunity here. So much opportunity here. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:34] Speaker A: And so in 2026. We're halfway through 2026 right now. Apparently, the Walmart distribution center has been slated for, like, a $300 million expansion. That's huge. Dollars. [00:08:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I just. Actually, I literally just talked to a friend. I ran into a friend who got a. A job there and, you know, some, like, middle management job there. You go, great salary. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:59] Speaker B: Like there's gonna be job opportunities there. [00:09:01] Speaker A: Lots of things coming in to the big city of Opelousas. The Hope for Opelousas Youth center just got. Is getting constructed there. They bought the family Dollar complex, which is right there on the main street in town. They're renovating that and they're turning it into income generating properties as well as using part of it for like a. Like a youth and teen center. I know exactly what that means. I'm not totally sure. [00:09:25] Speaker B: Okay. [00:09:27] Speaker A: But it is happening. It is happening. I think something crazy like, like 7 or 8,000 square feet of that facility is going to be dedicated to that center, like a lot. It's gonna be a big. [00:09:38] Speaker B: Wow. [00:09:38] Speaker A: It's gonna be a big space. [00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah, big space. Awesome. [00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah. All kinds of things going. [00:09:42] Speaker B: Oh yeah. And if we didn't. If we didn't mention you, we, we don't hate you. We just didn't remember to talk about. [00:09:49] Speaker A: We just didn't remember to say it [00:09:51] Speaker B: or didn't know about you. [00:09:52] Speaker A: And there's like, there's a cool development that's happening in neighborhoods. Folks are like, we've got friends in our church who have bought and are buying houses in town, continuing to try and bolster the community neighborhoods. We want more Christians to move into this city. [00:10:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:09] Speaker A: Full disclosure, Like, I want to make Appaloosas a Christian town. [00:10:13] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:10:13] Speaker A: How do we do that? [00:10:14] Speaker B: Does it right on the seal? [00:10:15] Speaker A: It does. [00:10:16] Speaker B: Well, be Christian. [00:10:16] Speaker A: Omnia, adei glorium and the ten commandments in the cross are right there, baby. Like, let's own that. Let's go all the way. In a town of, you know, I think, I think right now our population is probably closer to 12 or 13,000. The last census numbers I saw were 16. [00:10:31] Speaker B: No, I think, I think the last numbers we looked up on the show were in the 14s. [00:10:34] Speaker A: But in the 14. Yeah. Well, I just don't. I say 12 or 13 because I don't actually believe the census. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Sure. [00:10:39] Speaker A: But yeah. So I, that means that there's opportunity here not just to live and own cheap houses, but also to affect change. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah. That reminds me of our conversation with Brad vay, just talking about. And it was a good reminder for me as well. [00:10:57] Speaker A: Just like you can just know your neighbors, love your neighbor. You can just go talk to them. [00:11:01] Speaker B: Know your neighbor. We need a. We're throw a barbecue soon for some of our neighbors. [00:11:06] Speaker A: Dude, I know. I need to do the same thing. I've thought about that as well. We got to Wait until my kids clear of more of his stuff. But sometime in February, there will be a rager. [00:11:15] Speaker B: Yes. [00:11:16] Speaker A: At the Amadon House. [00:11:17] Speaker B: We want to clarify that word, but [00:11:21] Speaker A: a morally upright rager. [00:11:23] Speaker B: Yes. I was going to say. I say barbecue, but I don't want to offend the true barbecue enthusiasts. It'll be. It'll be a grill out. [00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah. You're going to make hamburgers. [00:11:31] Speaker B: It'll be a grill out. [00:11:32] Speaker A: And maybe some chicken thighs. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. [00:11:34] Speaker B: Hot dogs for the kids. [00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah, Hot dogs for Amen. That sounds good. So I think there's tons of opportunity here. We've said that so many times. And the people who are taking advantage of that opportunity, they're getting to win the fruits of it, like harvest the fruits of that opportunity. You don't realize how much profitable business is in this town. [00:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Somebody you know, one day we really ought to just like, let's do a tour of the businesses that operate in Opelousis that nobody knows are here. [00:12:06] Speaker B: Dude, I just got an idea. [00:12:08] Speaker A: What? [00:12:08] Speaker B: I know you hated my idea that once about like going around and interviewing people about Opelousis. [00:12:13] Speaker A: I never hate your ideas, David. [00:12:14] Speaker B: But what if we did it specifically? [00:12:16] Speaker A: Sometimes I do. [00:12:17] Speaker B: It's okay. Business oriented. Like, man, I'd love to go just like, say, go, go talk to some of these business owners and just see how long they've been here, kind of what they do. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Absolutely incredible. [00:12:29] Speaker B: I keep finding these hole in the wall places that have been here for a long time. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Well, didn't you go to Guarantee Glass not too long ago? [00:12:34] Speaker B: It's like a operation. [00:12:35] Speaker A: You walked in and you were like, wait a second, I didn't even know it existed. [00:12:38] Speaker B: And it's like a massive. [00:12:39] Speaker A: And we service like glass tool manufacturers in other parts of the country, in another part of the country. And here's this massive space that they could be operating in in Opelousas that I would say a lot of people don't know is there. [00:12:53] Speaker B: Yep. [00:12:54] Speaker A: You got targills there. You got Tony Satch here. Those are probably the two most obvious, I think, that people recognize and see, [00:13:00] Speaker B: because Opelousas, if you didn't know this listener, Opelousis is the spice capital of the world. That's our motto. [00:13:08] Speaker A: No, it's Omnia DEI glorium. [00:13:11] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no, sorry, sorry, sorry. [00:13:13] Speaker A: The tagline. [00:13:14] Speaker B: The Wikipedia version. [00:13:15] Speaker A: The Wikipedia says Spice Capital. The PC version. [00:13:18] Speaker B: But the city seal says otherwise. [00:13:21] Speaker A: Omnia ade. That means all glory to God. In other words, God gets the Glory in all things. And then there's so Targils. There's also, like, Gagne Lumber, which no one knows about. [00:13:34] Speaker B: International Lumber Company. [00:13:36] Speaker A: Massive industry operating out of the city. And everybody's like, they do what? [00:13:40] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:41] Speaker A: Who is that? Yeah, there's tons of businesses, Landry Lumber connected, you know. Yeah. I think they operate as one of their distributors, huh? [00:13:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah. There's tons of opportunity, tons of business right here. I prefer personally speaking of Saint Landry. [00:13:54] Speaker B: Oh, let me give a shout out to Savoirs. [00:13:57] Speaker A: Savoie sausage. Thank you very much. Distributes literally, like, we go out of state, far out of state, and we go to the grocery store, and we're like, Savoir's. Yeah, there it is. How about that? I prefer. If I'm shopping for a new firearm, I prefer to go to Austin's Outdoors, which is actually inside of St. Landry Lumber. They have a wildly excellent selection. I don't want to go all the way down to Lafayette. I can just go right there. They're great guys. They've worked with me. They're like, what you looking for, buddy? And we can make a deal. It goes really well. It's a good spot. There's tons of cool stuff happening inside of the city of Opelousis for folks who will just kind of look around. But there are holes. That's true. [00:14:40] Speaker B: In the roads [00:14:43] Speaker A: and the pipes. [00:14:45] Speaker B: See our previous episodes. [00:14:46] Speaker A: We don't need to get distracted by that. Yeah. There are things there. [00:14:50] Speaker B: There are. [00:14:51] Speaker A: There are. There are warts. Right. There are issues. But my argument is that's what gives this place opportunity. Okay. If it was perfect, the same opportunity wouldn't be present. [00:15:03] Speaker B: Right. There's. Everything would cost twice as much. [00:15:05] Speaker A: Yes. There. If you're an entrepreneur, an innovator, a builder, this is the place, man. You can come here and start stuff even if you just had some e commerce shop. Let's just spitball this for three seconds, okay? If you just. Let's say you wanted to develop an e commerce store. You want to develop an e commerce shop, you will get warehouse space here cheaper than anywhere else. You will get access to shipping easier than anywhere else. Because FedEx. Is it FedEx or UPS? One of the major shippers, has a distribution center. FedEx is south of us, right in Cairn Crow. And then UPS has a small center north of us, just right there. Easy access to distribution and shipping and labor. You've got all kinds of networks tap for labor. One of my buddies owns an e commerce shop. He actually Operates out of Lafayette. But all the guys that he hires. Well, not all the guys, but a lot of the guys that he hires, he hires from Opelousis. He gets them. They have a collaborative effort, or at least they did at one point with the refinery mission in town. There's guys who are looking to do day laborer type work. He hires them in. They move boxes, build shipping pallets, get things distributed from his warehouse there. He makes a killing, man. There's opportunity for this. You just have to be willing to move. If I had. Man, if I had the liquid, there's so much that could be done here. So much. [00:16:31] Speaker B: Yep. [00:16:31] Speaker A: Reach out and touch the world. [00:16:33] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:16:33] Speaker A: From Lollapaloosa and. [00:16:35] Speaker B: But you don't. But you. You reference. Obviously we have all the. It's. It's not bad to have some big hopes and dreams. But. But even if you don't have a lot of. It doesn't feel like you have a lot of capital at the second. Be faithful with what God has given you. We've talked about that in previous episodes too. [00:16:50] Speaker A: Sure. [00:16:51] Speaker B: Get started somewhere. Learn some skills. Try something new. Get out there and yeah, do something cool. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Look for holes in the market. Let the market dictate who needs to be served and then serve them. Boom. You have a business just like that. There's all kinds of things that could be going down. So we're happy to be here. We think there's great opportunity in the future. We think there will continue to be great opportunity in the future. And we believe that this place is moving up and to the right. [00:17:18] Speaker B: Amen. [00:17:19] Speaker A: Amen. Well, guys, thank you all so much for listening to another episode of the Parish Circuit. I'm Stuart with Dave. You can go to the parishcircuit.com to find all the articles and podcast episodes that we put out, and you can even submit ideas. You can also support the Parish Circuit. Please feed the children. They're hungry. Thank you all guys so much for listening to another episode and we'll see you next time.