Sometimes, fulfilling a goal is like traveling a long road, and then having to navigate through a scary place called “Where Dreams Die.”
A little over three years ago, a longtime friend rolled up on his bike while I was tailgating at a Southern University football game in Baton Rouge. Sherman Johnson said, “Pratt, my lady friend and I are going to start a restaurant in Scotlandville.”
“It’s going to be awhile, though,” he said. “But it’s going to happen.”
I wished him well, but honestly, I never gave it another thought. “Where dreams die” is always waiting for visitors.
Fast forward.
Last Saturday, a couple of friends and I rolled up to the Barnyard Cafe, a friendly breakfast-lunch restaurant at 1016 Osprey Ave., near the corner of Kingfisher Avenue, right smack in the heart of Scotlandville.
Johnson was behind the counter. His friend Denise Stevenson, the captain of the dream, was in the kitchen.
How this restaurant came into being is fodder for a movie or like Stevenson said, “It’s like a Spike Lee Joint.”
Ed Pratt
She yearned to be a business owner after taking vo-tech classes in high school. “It seemed so simple to run a business,” she said.
After spending four years of active duty in the Air Force, the Lawton, Oklahoma, native arrived in Baton Rouge, then spent 21 years in the Louisiana National Guard, and thoughts of owning her business were building.
She and Johnson met in 2009. Years later, the conversation about her dream started to take root. “My dream became our dream,” Stevenson said.
“Yeah, I was stepping into her dream. We were going to make this work,” said Johnson, who has worked at the Caesars Superdome.
Around 2017, they purchased three adjoining lots on Osprey Avenue. Now it was on. In 2019, they purchased a 14-foot by 40-foot storage unit. Basically, a 564-square-foot empty shell was moved to the property.
Stevenson had learned some carpentry while in the Air Force. That skill, combined with the ability to draw building plans and other odds and ends, meant the construction was on.
They got plumbers and electricians to do their thing. It took a long time. Stevenson did not have the money to fund everything at once.
She watched HGTV and used her creativity for some projects and did her own floor plans.
Much of the construction, shelves, bathroom doors, walls and finer points on the walls were done with the help of DIY, Google searches, trial and error, determination and sweat equity.
“We worked nights and weekends,” she said, adding, “we did all the little things.”
The process, she said, “was nerve-wracking. It was surreal, you not knowing how to feel sometimes.”
Of Johnson, she said, “He has been my cheerleader … my third and fourth hand. He has been my shoulder to cry on. He’s been a pain sometimes, too,” she laughed.
After nearly three years, the restaurant opened the weekend of Southern’s 2023 homecoming football game.
The small facility has seating for five inside and about six can sit at the covered table outside. Most folks get their food to go.
“People come here, even some of my high school (1971 McKinley High) classmates, and they come back,” said Johnson, who brags on his cooking skills.
Stevenson said the store is her effort to give back to the community. “We need more small businesses in the Black community.”
A regular customer, Southern University student Lexci Ferguson, said she loves the idea of the restaurant and says she and others plan to do whatever volunteer work they can to help. “I want to give back to the community here,” she said.
Starting a business, especially a Black-owned business, is risky. Studies show 8 out of 10 Black-owned businesses fail within the first 18 months.
“Sure, it’s had its struggles,” said Stevenson, who is a state health inspector during the week and works at the restaurant on Saturdays. “We have faith that it will steadily pay for itself, especially since we will be open for Southern’s tailgate season.”
“It’s going to work,” she said. “God is good.”