On the edge of Cross Lake in Shreveport, Louisiana, with the city’s primary water source shimmering just outside the window, there is a restaurant carrying more than a century of history in every single dish it sends to the table. 🌊
Orlandeaux’s Café is widely recognized as the continued legacy of the oldest continuously operating African-American family-owned restaurant in the United States — a multi-generational Creole soul food Shreveport institution where five generations of the Chapman family have kept the same beloved recipes alive, soulful, and deeply, unapologetically Louisiana.
How Orlandeaux’s Cafe Won Locals’ Hearts
The story begins in 1921, when Damien Chapman’s great-great-great uncles, Jack Harris and Van Freeman — natives of the Campti area of Natchitoches Parish — moved to Shreveport and opened Freeman & Harris on Texas Avenue, a restaurant that would spend the next one hundred years shapeshifting in name and location but never in spirit.
Over the decades, it became Pete Harris Café — the most well-known iteration — before becoming Brother’s Seafood under Orlando Chapman Sr., and finally, in 2021, reopening as Orlandeaux’s Café under fifth-generation owner Damien “Chapeaux” Chapman.
For Damien, walking away from the restaurant was never an option — the history was too deep, the community’s connection too real, and the ancestors who had given their lives to keep it alive too present to be ignored.
The legacy of Orlandeaux’s runs far deeper than great food — during segregation, the restaurant was one of the only places in Shreveport where Black and white residents freely dined together in the same room without fear — a sanctuary built on the universal language of a perfectly seasoned plate.
The City of Shreveport and Parish of Caddo honored Orlandeaux’s with a special proclamation in 2023, recognizing its extraordinary century-long legacy — and 64 Parishes, Louisiana’s most respected cultural publication, declared it simply: “No place carries Shreveport’s culinary traditions with more pride and experience than Orlandeaux’s Café.”
Food Highlights
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Stuffed Shrimp: Jumbo shrimp split open, packed with a generous heap of seasoned crabmeat stuffing touched with a bit of heat, then deep fried into a gloriously oblong shape.
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Gumbeaux: A divinely seasoned seafood gumbo — rich, dark, deeply layered, and served with a view of Cross Lake. 🥣
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Crawfish Étouffée: Tender crawfish tails smothered in a rich, buttery Creole sauce served over white rice.🦞
- Catfish Campti: Crispy fried catfish smothered in a rich crawfish étouffée, served over a bed of rice — a signature Orlandeaux’s creation named for the Campti area of Natchitoches Parish. 🐟
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Shrimp and Grits: Plump, seasoned shrimp in a savory Creole sauce over creamy stone-ground grits. 🍤
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Smothered Pork Chops: Thick, bone-in pork chops slow-smothered in a deeply savory onion and brown gravy. 🍖
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Red Beans and Rice: Slow-cooked red beans in a smoky, seasoned pot liquor served over steamed white rice — regulars recommend adding the sausage for added delicousness. 🫘
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Boudin: House-made Cajun boudin — pork, rice, and spices packed into a casing and served hot. 🌶️
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Shrimp Po’ Boy: Crispy fried shrimp piled high on toasted French bread with lettuce, tomato, and Orlandeaux’s legendary house-made tartar sauce. 🥖🦐
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Beignets: Light, fluffy pillows of fried dough dusted in powdered sugar with a hidden pool of sweet syrup at the bottom — widely called the best beignets in all of Northwest Louisiana. 🍩✨
Atmosphere
Orlandeaux’s Café sits in an impressively sprawling lakeside building on the shores of Cross Lake, Shreveport’s primary water supply — a setting so naturally beautiful that the view alone makes the experience feel like something more than just a meal. 🌊
Zydeco music and classic R&B — Ray Charles, Bobby Blue Bland — drift through the dining room, creating the kind of comforting, culturally rich atmosphere that only a restaurant with one hundred years of Black Southern history behind it could authentically produce.
“We just feel like family in this place,” one diner summed it up — and in a restaurant that has been feeding Shreveport since 1921, that feeling is not an accident. It is the entire point. 🙌
Bottom Line
Orlandeaux’s Café is more than Shreveport’s best restaurant — it is a living piece of American history.
A multi-generational soul food restaurant Louisiana icon that has fed communities, bridged divides, and carried five generations of Chapman family recipes through over a century of joy, struggle, and perseverance.
From the legendary stuffed shrimp to the best beignets in the Ark-La-Tex, this is one meal you owe yourself. 🦐🏆
Address:
5301 S Lakeshore Dr, Shreveport, LA 71109
📞 (318) 688-7777
🕔 Open Mon–Fri, 11 AM–8 PM | Sat, 11 AM–9 PM (closed Sun)