Lansing Area ‘Jazzed’ About Cajun Restaurant.

Lansing Area ‘Jazzed’ About Cajun Restaurant.


They share a building, but Gumbo & Jazz, East Lansing's only cajun restaurant, is somewhat visually obscured from Grand River Ave by Bells Pizza. Inside, pictures of Jazz Musicians as well as the enveloping redolence of shrimp stock and cayenne pepper have made the ambiance at Gumbo and Jazz a virtual shrine to New Orleans' creole culture.

[Here I will talk about how it has been a year since ‘Jazz opened and I will ask Desi Anderson (the owner) how business has been doing and I will ask her about the kind of people who typically comes into her restaurant. I will ask her who her regulars are.

I will talk about Jazz’s unusual preparation methods. Apparently they start slow-cooking everything in the morning, and once it's gone, it's gone for the day. I will ask them what goes that fastest.

I will ask what Jazz’s most popular items are.

Then, I will ask if there have been any changes to the menu since they started. I will as them if they plan to expand the menu.

I will ask her what made her think that a Cajun food restaurant could be successful in the Lansing area. I will ask her if she thinks that Lansing is a good place to start a new business, and I will ask her if she has any tips for any entrepreneurs starting up in the area.

I will ask her about how Gumbo and Jazz has improved its visibility in the Lansing area and about the "Taste of Louisiana" event that the restaurant sponsored in Old Town last August. I'll ask them about what kind of acts they had and if it was succesful.

I will ask them if they will have a similar event next year. I will also ask them about the Old Town Jazz Festival and if they have any involvement in that.

I'm pretty sure I can get a good 1,000 words out of this.]

Pitch 1 For Capital Gains.

I am going to do a story about Gumbo & Jazz, a Cajun restaurant in East Lasning, MI where I will conduct interviews and do research in an effort formulate a story about the restaurants origins along with it's popularity and success.

I will conduct interviews with the owners, proprietors, employees and perhaps customers.

This connects to the mission of capital gains because it is a story that showcases the growth and development in the Lansing region. In this instance it is a successful small business that is relatively unconventional for East Lansing.

Cajun and soul food restaurants are rare, and in East Lansing new restaurants tend to focus around burgers, pizza, burritos and sometimes wings, but Gumbo and Jazz has successfully bucked this trend, which reveals promise for the growth of diverse of businesses and growth of culture in the region.

CG readers will like it because it might tell them something they don’t know, but it will also meet and exceed the expectations they have of a CG article. Some stories were done on G&J by other publications, but not for about a year and they have so far evaded failure, not an uncommon phenomenon among start-ups in east Lansing. This will be more of a small business/investment story than previous articles.

Business leaders will like seeing the argument that culture and business growth can go hand in hand since each economic opportunity and culture are two factors that can attract new people to a region.

Why did they choose Lansing? What do they think? What do they like? What do they miss about New Orelans?

What makes it a good business opportunity?