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36 Hours in Thibodaux

Thibodaux delivers a small town getaway with a decidedly Cajun accent

by

Frank McMains

It’s not a long drive to the city of Thibodaux, but you might still need your passport stamped. That’s because this little gem of a town in the heart of Lafourche Parish delivers a world of difference, a welcome shift in culture and perspective dripping in Spanish moss and the particular sounds of the Cajun bayou. If Lafayette is the big-city capital of Cajun Country, Thibodaux puts the country into Cajun, a charming little college burgh embraced by antebellum manses, bayous, and cypress swamps. 

Thibodaux was first settled by French and Spanish Creoles from New Orleans, but it was soon the home of Acadian refugees expelled from their homes in the mid-1700s. Those Acadians set down deep roots in the community, fiercely holding onto their language, food traditions, music, and heritage. 

Cajun at Heart 

It’s 5:30 on a Monday evening and Jerry Moody is singing in Cajun French about how the chicken knows it’s Mardi Gras. Moody is performing to a small group of fans at the Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center, part of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park & Preserve, a stellar spot that backs up onto the bayou. Moody is on accordion, and his wife, Judith Pringle, is playing guitar, with a few other local musicians keeping the beat. It’s something they do just about every Monday night during the free jam sessions at the center, a good reason to extend your weekend in Thibodaux if time allows.

Music, like food, is a thoroughfare for history, which makes the Wetlands Center a perfect jumping off point. The region’s history— the origins, migration, settlement, and contemporary culture of the Acadians—is told here through free programming, including films, exhibits, and events built on local traditions that extend beyond music into storytelling, dance, and food. Gratis canoe paddles are offered regularly on Grand Bayou north of town, but you can also take yourself on a stroll along the banks of Bayou Lafourche behind the center, where you might surprise a long-legged heron or a gaggle of turtles sunning themselves on a gnarly cypress knob. 

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This is sugar cane country, too, a fact borne out with a visit to the Laurel Valley Plantation Store two miles south of Route 20 on Highway 308. The place is a warren, a slightly forlorn repository for all kinds of tools and farm implements used in the cultivation of cane. The real must-see is a drive down the two-mile plantation road past the eerie ruins of Laurel Valley Plantation, composed of more than fifty decaying buildings that include original slave quarters complete with outhouses. The structures are on private property, and the main plantation house is off limits to the public. But you can see everything from the road, a haunting sight that might seem familiar if you’ve seen the movie Angel Heart—it’s the same road detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) travels to visit Epiphany (Lisa Bonet). For a truly awe-inspiring interpretation of plantation life from the perspective of the enslaved, drive twenty-five miles north to visit Whitney Plantation, the first museum in the state to focus solely on the institution of slavery, which it does in a thorough and emotionally gripping way. 

While you’re road tripping, travel twenty miles or so south on Highway 308 to the Center for Traditional Boat Building and the Bayou Lafourche Folklife & Heritage Museum in Lockport, well-curated attractions that delve into the watery history of this slice of coastal Louisiana. 

Charm and Oddities

Downtown Thibodaux takes no time to navigate; but for some back story, take a walking tour from the Wetlands Center, offered at 2 pm Monday through Saturday. This one-mile foray into history, led by a local ranger, points to highlights including the sweeping spire of St. John’s Episcopal Church, a Georgian beauty and the oldest Episcopalian church in Louisiana. Whether on the tour or on your own time, check out the St. Valerie Shrine at St. Joseph Cathedral, an ornate glass-and-wood casket with a wax statue of the saint reposing inside, her face turned oddly up. The faithful come to see the saint’s severed arm tucked into a satin sleeve, a relic brought to Louisiana in 1868.   

If you’re staying at the Dansereau House B&B, history is sleeping right beside you and on display at every turn. The raised Italianate “cottage,” with its bracketed cornices and gingerbread curlicues, was built in 1847 for Dr. Hercules Dansereau, whose family lived there for close to a century. It’s now used for events and has six cavernous suites done up with imported brocades and the kind of antique beds that require climbing into with the help of a small carved set of steps. The gardens are lovely, and the location is in the heart of town and within walking distance to everything. A restaurant is supposedly in the works, but for now a hot breakfast and nearby restaurants will keep hunger at bay. 

Shoppers will find a few quaint boutiques along the Thibodaux Main Street area mostly on West 2nd, 3rd, and 4th streets. Queeny’s is notable for a fashion-forward array of women’s clothing and accessories.

Spirits and Sustenance

If you go to bed hungry in Thibodaux, it’s on you. Cajun cuisine is famously belly busting, and there is plenty of local flavor to be had. Bubba’s II Restaurant and Sports Lounge is a popular hangout, a temple to all things sporty and strewn with tons of memorabilia, including a championship ring donated by former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda after he feasted here. Tuck into the likes of chicken and sausage gumbo, fried mac and cheese, and mammoth fried seafood poboys, all priced low enough to leave room for a helping of bread pudding if you’re so inclined. 

Seafood is a specialty at Fremin’s downtown, a solid eatery notable for its lacy wrought iron balcony and potent libations. Try the flounder roulade, crawfish étouffée, or the seafood Napoleon topped with Parmesan cheese.  

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For something besides Cajun cuisine, reserve a table at Foundry On The Bayou, an event space and restaurant that serves savory Creole Italian fare, including a mean chicken Parm and a toothsome vegetarian lasagna. 

Be sure to specify Rougaroux rum when you order your Dark and Stormy at the Foundry’s upstairs Fountain Lounge before dinner. Rougaroux is a locally made small batch cane-to-cocktail spirit from locally owned Donner-Peltier Distillers. Founded in Thibodaux in 2012, DPD boasts a range of distinctive spirits using authentic Louisiana ingredients, including Oryza Gin, Oryza Vodka, Rougaroux Sugarshine Rum, Rougaroux Full Moon Rum, Rougaroux 13 Pennies Praline Rum, and the newest product on the shelf, LA1 Whiskey. You can do a sipping tour of the rapidly expanding distillery, which recently added a third still that will allow it to wet its customers’ whistles to the tune of ten thousand cases a year.

“Rougaroux” is derived from “rougarou,” the name for a legendary Cajun werewolf that’s said to prowl the swamps and bayous with monstrous intent. Whether the shape-shifter is real or imagined, the thought of wandering along a moonlit patch of road with just fields of cane and slave cabins for company is enough to make anybody a believer. 

With its bucolic setting along atmospheric Bayou Lafourche, antebellum and Acadian history, and walkable main street vibe, Thibodaux delivers a small town getaway with a decidedly Cajun accent. 

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