LAFAYETTE PARISH — With Festival International looming, KATC took a trip downtown to see how local businesses are faring.
Our first stop was Amis Grocery to talk to co-owner Craig Biddy. Situated at the center of the action at the intersection of Jefferson and Vermillion, Biddy says the store is a one-stop shop, selling food, drinks, over-the-counter medications, umbrellas, ponchos, and more. For the festival, Amis Grocery is focusing on portable food with minimal packaging so attendees are not toting trash around all day.
"The whole design behind everything that we're doing is so that you can easily take it out on the street and then easily dispose of it as well, because, you know, the trash cans always fill up so very quickly, and if you have big Styrofoam [containers], it makes it harder," Biddy said.
After we said bye to Biddy, we headed down to Cocodrie Collective, where we spoke with owner Colette Bernard. She says that for her business, these next few days are even bigger than Black Friday.
"We host over 100 different artists from around the world in my gift shop. So we've been preparing new inventory, new things to see, and of course, those festival favorites and a bunch of festival freebies for all of our customers who are going to be visiting us," Bernard said.
Finally, we pulled up to Domochi, a mobile mochi donut spot. Owner Ethan Ly says he will be juggling two locations this week, offering treats at the truck and at a pop-up where he will be carting in fresh donuts around the clock.
"So for festival, we've got technically two locations. We've got this one here at Uncle Bob's Roundup, and then I'll be right next to Parc Putnam with a pop-up tent. We're definitely planning for probably quadruple the amount of, uh, product that we're normally producing." Ly said.
