From New Orleans to Shrewsbury: NOLA Cajun Kitchen to open second location
SHREWSBURY — When Robert and Judy Nguyen opened NOLA Cajun Kitchen in West Boylston in 2019 they weren’t sure whether their dishes, heavy with New Orleans-style flavors, would strike the perfect savory notes for the area’s foodies.
Five years later, their food has proven to be a hit. Wednesday, the couple will expand to a second, much bigger location in Shrewsbury near Route 9.
“We're fortunate that business has been good for us,” said Robert during an interview Thursday. “During COVID it was pretty bad, but after that, we saw things picking up.”
The new location will be found inside a space at MarketPlace Shrewsbury plaza, 378 Maple Ave., which will dwarf the original location by five times, with 40 indoor seats and 10 outdoor spots.
The new location has been approved for a beer and liquor license and it will feature new food items, thanks to a bigger kitchen, according to Nguyen.
“From now to April, we're going to run the same menu,” said Nguyen. “After that we're going to roll out new items, such as grilled oysters Rockefeller, beignets and café au lait.”
Nguyen, 58, is a native of Vietnam who has racked up more than 35 years in combined experience at restaurant and hotel businesses, starting out in New Orleans as a dishwasher and cook at a French restaurant.
After trying his hand at pizza businesses and American restaurants throughout the years in his native Vietnam, Mexico and elsewhere, he managd the restaurant at Beechwood Hotel for about seven years.
Longing to own their own restaurant, Nguyen and his wife decided to experiment with a new idea in 2019.
“After doing careful research in New England, I found that there's no concept that had New Orleans-style food,” said Robert, "so we decided to test the market and see if people in New England like New Orleans food."
In 2019, the Nguyens kickstarted NOLA Cajun Kitchen at 340 West Boylston St. in West Boylston, with main dishes hailing from Robert’s experience in New Orleans. (NOLA is a nickname for New Orleans, Louisiana.)
Their menu features dishes such as po’ boys, gumbo and fried alligator, among other options.
Even though the vision, Nguyen said, is to eventually start a franchise throughout New England, for now the family can’t wait to open the doors to the new location.
The plaza is a multispace retail plaza that opened in recent years after some of the previous plaza, once home to a Price Chopper supermarket, was razed in 2018.
The plaza is now anchored by a Reliant Medical Group clinic.
Next door to NOLA, EggHolic, an Indian-style restaurant, will open its doors Friday.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: NOLA Cajun Kitchen to open second location, in Shrewsbury
