Orlandeaux’s Café on Milam Street has been feeding Shreveport since 1921, and the woman running the kitchen today, Patricia Mercado, has been there for over thirty years.
I first went on a Tuesday in November, following a tip from a friend who grew up in the Allendale neighborhood and still talks about the place like it raised him. He wasn’t wrong. The room is small, the tables are close together, and the lunch rush fills every seat by eleven-thirty. Patricia moves through the kitchen with the kind of efficiency that comes from doing something ten thousand times — she’s not performing anything for anyone.
The menu is a short list of Southern plates that haven’t chased trends in a century: smothered pork chops, fried catfish, red beans and rice, chicken and dressing on Fridays. I went for the catfish my first visit. Cornmeal crust, fried hard and crisp the way it should be, served with a side of yams that tasted like someone’s grandmother made them specifically for you. The portion was large enough that I boxed half of it and ate it again at my desk two hours later, still good.
But the reason I’ve gone back four times since is the muffuletta. It’s not the thing Orlandeaux’s is famous for — the soul food plates are what people talk about — but Patricia makes a muffuletta that I genuinely think about when I’m not eating it. She layers the olive salad herself, lets it sit overnight so everything soaks into the bread, and the result is tighter and more briny than the tourist-friendly versions you find around the state. It costs about nine dollars for a half, which in 2024 feels almost reckless on their part.
Patricia will talk to you if you come during a slow stretch, usually right after the noon rush clears out around one-fifteen. She told me she learned most of what she knows from the woman who ran the café before her, and that she hasn’t changed the red beans recipe since she took over the stove. She said it like it was obvious, like why would you.
Orlandeaux’s doesn’t have a website worth mentioning, the parking situation requires a little patience, and cash is strongly preferred. The dining room has the kind of lighting that makes everyone look like they’ve been there for years, which most of the regulars have. A table of city workers comes in every Wednesday. A retired postal carrier named Chester sits at the same corner seat and orders the smothered chicken without looking at the menu.
The café is closed on weekends and shuts down by two in the afternoon on weekdays, so you have to plan around it. That’s not an inconvenience — it’s just the deal. Go early, order the catfish or the muffuletta, and leave room for the bread pudding if they have it. They don’t always have it, and Patricia will tell you plainly when they don’t.
What makes Orlandeaux’s worth your time isn’t nostalgia or novelty. It’s the fact that Patricia Mercado cooks the same food the same way every single day, and it’s excellent. That’s harder to find than people admit.
