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St. James Place hosted it's 40th Anniversary First Responders Jambalaya Cook-off on Friday. Four teams competed in the cook-off using 30 gallon pots with the remaining jambalaya being served to the area first responders as a thank you for serving the community.

The classrooms are empty but locations in the Capital Region will be filled with food in order to feed children during the summer months. The Child Nutrition Program of the Diocese of Baton Rouge will be providing free meals in June.

City Pork took over the former Adrian's Restaurant and Bar near Alexander's Highland Market in summer 2021. Its parent restaurant group, City Group Hospitality, kept its spacious interior mostly the same while providing south Baton Rouge with many of the menu favorites found at its sister location on Jefferson Highway.

City Group enhances its digital ordering process from insights from LSU,Cornell in Harvard Business Study. 

Louisiana Restaurant Association Spring Issue 2023 :

"Last year was about nurturing the power of our people to make a difference for our guests, and a focused strategy on defining our processes within our organization," says City Group Hospitality President & CEO Patrick Valluzzo. 

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City Group Hospitality is hosting a Denim & Diamonds Benefit Event on Monday, April 24. 

Guests will enjoy food and wine to benefit Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response (STAR). Show up in your best denim outfit and enter the event's best-dressed contest for a chance to win prizes. All guests will have the chance to win its spa-themed door prize. Attendees must be 21 or older.  

Dinner is from 6-9 p.m. and tickets are $50 per guest. City Pork Highland is at 18143 Perkins Road E.  

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and the best thing you can do is to be aware. It's why the nonprofit, Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response, or S.T.A.R., is inviting you to sit down and join in on important conversations to prevent sexual violence.

BATON ROUGE - Restaurants are preparing for a busy weekend as they get ready to kick off crawfish season with "Crawfête," a festival where you'll be able to enjoy the best boiled crawfish and crawfish-inspired dishes from all your favorite local restaurants.

"We're going to have about 11 restaurants participating Sunday in the 'Gourmet Crawfish Dish,' and then 11 other restaurants participating in our 'Boiling Competitions,' so you can come out and see who you think has the best crawfish in Baton Rouge," said Stephen Hightower, president of the Baton Rouge Epicurean Society.

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There's no shortage of seafood options available at Baton Rouge restaurants on an everyday basis, but kitchens and patrons alike branch out and try new things during Lent.

Stick Newchurch, area director for City Group Hospitality, says Rouj Creole's chefs flex their creative muscles with new menu options as guests increasingly want more than run-of-the-mill fried fish.

"We saw the dessert bar as a place for kids to maybe come hang out while adults are at the table," says Stephen Hightower, managing partner of City Group Hospitality, which opened Spoke & Hub last February. "It's a place where you can get a slice of one of the daily pies or cake specials or have something like our ice cream nachos."

BATON ROUGE, La. (THE LOUISIANA WEEKEND) - Every foodie's favorite week of the year is here. Baton Rouge Restaurant Week is January 23 - 28, 2023. During restaurant week, diners can enjoy curated menus created specifically for this week. Each menu includes a three course meal for one price. Menu prices range from $15.00 to $45.00. Diners can experience various types of food from pizza and tacos to lamb chops and ribeye steaks. Of course seafood is always on the menu here in Louisiana.

There's no shortage of seafood options available at Baton Rouge restaurants on an everyday basis, but kitchens and patrons alike branch out and try new things during Lent.

Stick Newchurch, area director for City Group Hospitality, says Rouj Creole's chefs flex their creative muscles with new menu options as guests increasingly want more than run-of-the-mill fried fish.

The unofficial theme for Friday's lunch meeting of the Baton Rouge Epicurean Society at Gino's was "Family." It was fitting, then, that the winner of the Grace "Mama" Marino Award was the Saurage family, the owners of Community Coffee.

The E. J. Ourso College of Business serves as a catalyst for innovation, economic growth, and community development by preparing future business leaders, engaging with local businesses, and conducting scholarly research efforts to address ongoing and emerging concerns throughout Louisiana. Partnering with industry is one way the college brings this vision to life for our students and community. In general, partnership with industry provides students with practical learning opportunities and allows them to expand their professional networks. At the same time, businesses can gain industry-specific knowledge from professors and hear innovative solutions from students on different ways to reach their target markets.

Usually at a birthday dinner, the song "Happy Birthday" is sung by friends and family members. Now, at Rouj Creole, a robot carries the tune — but, fair warning, the birthday song may not sound like you'd expect a robot singing "Happy birthday" would sound, as it's more like a choir than Rosey the Robot on the Jetsons. 

If you've dined at Rouj Creole on Bluebonnet Boulevard during the past couple weeks, you might have been surprised when a robot brought over your drink order.

The restaurant, part of City Group Hospitality, is testing a BellaBot in hopes of improving service amid staff shortages and rising costs.

The sight of smoke lingering from the fajitas. The sound of vegetables sizzling. The smell of the meat and the taste of it with the onions and peppers together in a tortilla. All of our senses govern how we experience the world and enhance the food and ambiance of a restaurant.

Planning a holiday party for your company is a big job, Let City Group Hospitality make it easier. When you're responsible for coordinating a work function, you have schedules to navigate, menus to select, manage the budget and make the big day a success.  

City Group Hospitality's catering expert, Jessica Burris answers your questions and offers advice to take the pain out of planning holiday parties.

In this episode of We Live to Eat, VP of Communications Wendy Waren sits down with Stephen Hightower of City Group Hospitality. Stephen touches on his restaurant concepts, the why's for his concept direction decisions and the future in restaurant technology.

Since it opened in February, Spoke & Hub has sharpened its brand as an all-day breakfast spot, a direction City Group Hospitality managing partner Stephen Hightower says is paying off. "I watched somebody order a stack of pancakes for dinner last night," says Hightower. "People like breakfast."

Keiristin Wilbert visits Beausoleil Coastal Cuisine and Rouj Creole to take a deep dive into their Restaurant Week menu! 

1/23/2023

Restaurant Week is back, and it's time to feast your way throughout the capital city! This week, you can stick to old favorites or enjoy something new in over a dozen restaurants across Baton Rouge.

Restaurants like Proverbial Wine Bistro on Antioch Road off Airline Highway are getting the chance to not only showcase their main dishes but also offer something new for everyone to try.

January is the perfect month to savor oysters, from raw and wiggly to gilded and chargrilled. City Pork Perkins, located in the site of the former seafood restaurant Adrian's, serves the beloved bivalve in many forms.

Business Report

David Dickensauge, executive chef of Beausoleil Coastal Cuisine, has found his voice both personally and in the kitchen, and while it's a bit calmer than in his younger years, you still will find the whimsy and creativeness in his dishes that he's known for.

Stephen Hightower is on the front line of Baton Rouge's hospitality industry. Stephen is Managing Partner of the City Group Hospitality Restaurant Group, which operates 11 operations with 7 unique concepts, including City Pork, Beausoleil, City Slice Pints and Pizza, Proverbial Wine and Bistro, Rouj Creole and Hub and Spoke, as well as Turning Point Food Services, which runs the cafeteria at Catholic High School. 

One of City Pork Brasserie and Bar's most popular items is its changeable charcuterie board, a pick-your-own collection of house-made meats, cheeses, pickled onions and cucumbers, and homemade mustards.

Best Brunch Spots in Louisiana! Beausoleil Coastal Cuisine in Baton Rouge

THE BASICS: City Group Hospitality added to its roster with this spot in Long Farm Village in October 2021. The concept is all about pairing wines, beers and cocktails with a variety of foods, most notably on shareable boards. The interior design gives a nod to the wine theme, with walls in the same green as traditional Burgundy bottles and modern furnishings featuring wood and leather accents.

With a new raw bar and a heightened focus on inventive coastal cuisine, recently refreshed Beausoleil is all about interpreting seafood through a vibrant global lens.

Reimagined diner fare, a semi-secret speakeasy and a cycling-centric theme define the new Spoke & Hub, the latest City Group Hospitality concept. The restaurant is set to open later this month in the iconic building on the east end of Government Street once occupied by Bistro Byronz.

Beausoleil has been a Baton Rouge staple for years. New owner and local restaurateur Stephen Hightower wasn't going to let that change. 

CGH Managing partner, Stephen Hightower, doing his part to continue to impact the recovery efforts for the restaurant industry. Very exciting to see him on the national outlet, CNBC. Check Out the Article at CNBC.com 

Ask bartender Alan Walter if he follows certain rules when making cocktails, and he can't respond fast enough.

"No," he says gamely. "I break them."

Over the last 15 years, the mixologist has built a national reputation for eschewing tradition and preparing drinks in a manner that's a lot culinary and a little mad science. 

City Group Hospitality is opening its latest concept next week in Long Farm Village. Proverbial Wine Bistro is about thoughtful pairings of food with not just wine, but craft beer and detailed cocktails as well, says City Group Hospitality managing partner Stephen Hightower. For the last few months, Hightower has been quietly working on opening the concept, located in the spot recently held by Wildwood Pizza.

City Group's strategy in refining the concept has included hiring mixologist Alan Walter, well known for transforming the Loa Bar at the International House Hotel in New Orleans into one of the city's hottest spots. With cocktails awash in foraged local ingredients and tedious preparation methods, Walter is famous for applying a culinary approach to each layer of cocktail construction. Along with establishing Proverbial's bar program, he will help City Group Hospitality's other restaurants rethink how drinks support their menus.

Even as they navigate continuing labor and supply chain issues, several Baton Rouge restaurant operators are planning openings this fall.

Original concepts and refreshed locations will roll out over the next few weeks and months, heralding the continuing evolution of the Capital City's dining scene.

Here are some to watch:

• Proverbial Wine Bistro—City Group Hospitality's new wine-focused bistro will feature themed grazing boards for lunch, dinner and brunch; shareable appetizers; flatbreads; fresh fish; and steaks. In keeping with the name, diners who finish a bottle can write their own proverb on a wine cork and drop it into a glass display. The Long Farm spot, once occupied by Wildwood Pizza, will open in mid-October, says operating partner Stephen Hightower.

Baton Rouge restaurant operator Stephen Hightower said he hopes to open Proverbial Wine Bistro in the Long Farm Village within the next month.

The wine-focused bistro is set to go in the mixed-use development at 9659 Antioch Road that had been occupied by Wildwood Pizza.

A menu is still in the works. But Hightower said he wants to offer diners a trip around the world with various dishes and wine pairings.

The brick oven installed by the pizzeria is still in place, so pizzas and flatbreads might end up on the menu. Other dishes may include fish, steaks and grazing boards with different meats and cheeses.

Hurricane Ida and its aftermath have layered new problems on top of the challenges the Baton Rouge restaurants were already facing. 

Nick Hufft, owner of Curbside Burgers and Overpass Merchant, says neither restaurant lost power and both were able to open after the storm. Asked about how business was over the long weekend, he said it was "about the same as it's been for the past 18 months," which is to say not great when compared to the prior year. 

He says food vendors are facing difficulties that his managers are adapting to.

"It's been a challenge to manipulate the menus to see what we can use and how we can use it," Hufft says. 

Stephen Hightower, managing partner of the City Group Hospitality family of restaurants, says Saturday was fairly slow but Sunday was busy. He also points to food sourcing as a major challenge. 

Three Baton Rouge area leaders in the food and hospitality industry were honored at the Louisiana Hospitality Foundation's 10th annual Gold Medal Chefs Gala and Hospitality Awards on Aug. 4 in The Great Hall at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

Baton Rouge area winners are Stephen Hightower of City Group Hospitality, who won the Drago Cvitanovich Award for Outstanding Philanthropy by an Entrepreneur.

Beausoleil used to be a go-to spot for me, but over time, my interest waned. To say that the restaurant has now shifted its focus under City Group Hospitality is an understatement. I was blown away with the upgrades to the menu and the space that took place late last year. The once-familiar restaurant has now adopted a whole new dining style focused on elevated seafood dishes.

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD)- On Friday Governor John Bel Edwards encouraged businesses to re-evaluate strategies to help stop the spread of the fourth coronavirus surge.

At Beausoleil's on Jefferson Highway, masking up returns for employees regardless of their vaccination status.

Owner Stephen Hightower said the company made the decision to ensure the safety of staff and customers.

BATON ROUGE - As the state faces yet another surge, restaurants in the capital area are taking precautions to keep their staff and customers safe.

"Today City Group Hospitality and all of our restaurants implemented our mask policy for all of our employees from the front of the house staff to the back," said Stephen Hightower Managing Partner at City Group Hospitality.

Picture a deli paired with a full-service bar and plenty of outside seating—not to mention an oyster grill and bloody marys topped with bacon and wings.

This is the new City Pork at Highland Park Marketplace, and it's a little bit of everything you've come to know about the brand, plus more.

Spoke & Hub, the latest eatery from Stephen Hightower, should open in early September in the former Bistro Byronz location on Government Street.

The restaurant and bar will be open for lunch and dinner seven days a week and have an Americana diner concept, Hightower said. Plans are to offer pancake breakfasts Friday through Sunday, but that could expand based on popularity.

With two potential hurricanes this week making even local travel seem precarious, there's no better time to hunker down and enjoy some takeout. Louisianians are born and bred for times like these, so we vote weathering the storms in true Louisiana fashion with some Creole cuisine—Rouj Creole's Lobster Tagliatelle.