September 2010. Once again, tiny Breaux Bridge offers up big fun.

As often reported in these pages, Breaux Bridge is the quintessential charming small town, garnering rave reviews from travel writers, music lovers and antique enthusiasts for its Café des Amis, Cajun ambiance and widely popular crawfish festival.

Now it has one more delight designed for its residents and the lucky visitors who come to hang with the locals.

David Buck, his daughter Heather Indest, and two partners have turned the old Domingue Motors in the center of Breaux Bridge into Lagniappe, a 17,000-square-foot antique mall chock full of antique dealers, local artists and specialty shops. There’s space for special events, gallery exhibits and catered receptions fronting Berard Street, and there’s Buck & Johnny’s Pizzeria, a family-oriented restaurant serving specialty pizzas, sandwiches and Italian entrees.
Buck & Johnny’s opened two months ago and has been attracting a mostly local crowd. The night we visited the large space upstairs overlooking the entire restaurant hosted a local high school reunion crowd who used to meet at Mulate’s.

“It’s a gathering place,” said Morgan Angelle, the executive chef and a native of Breaux Bridge. “It’s something for us, not made for tourists.”

The restaurant is named after David Buck and Johnny Raymond, with Lafayette’s celebrated Poupart’s Bakery as a partner, supplying the restaurant’s breads, desserts and pizza crust. Buck transformed Domingue’s old auto dealership in stages, starting with the antique mall first, then the event space and now the final installment of the restaurant, said Jennifer Casanova, general manager of Lagniappe.

Casanova, whose resumé includes owning an antique shop and decorating restaurants in Florida, established the auto theme of Buck & Johnny’s using car-related antiques as décor, original items and photos from Domingue’s and quirky accents such as anti-freeze and motor oil cans transformed into hanging lights above the tables. The result is a family-friendly space that also serves as a fun, even romantic night out.

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