Lost Cajun restaurant - born in Colorado - finds a home in Slidell

Raymond Griffin left Louisiana for Colorado in 2010, his charter fishing business all but sunk by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and a couple of hurricanes. By the time he found his way home in April 2017, the self-proclaimed "lost Cajun" had transformed a hole-in-the-wall gumbo shop near Breckenridge into a rapidly-growing national restaurant chain that is soon to open its first location in the New Orleans area. The Lost Cajun, which serves gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, etouffee, beignets and other such Louisiana fare, will open its doors in Slidell's Fremaux Town Center in July and there are plans to establish a location in western St. Tammany Parish by the end of the year, Griffin said. The restaurant chain has also moved its corporate headquarters to Covington. The Slidell restaurant will take over the space in the Fremaux Center previously occupied by Felipe's Mexican Taqueria, which closed in October of 2017 in order to focus efforts on its New Orleans and Florida markets. The Lost Cajun chain currently has 17 restaurants, including eight in Colorado, seven Texas and one each in Tennessee and South Carolina. Griffin said seven more are due to open this summer, including the Slidell location.