Truly Free

08/20/2019

Truly Free Hello everyone. This is Erick Coughlin writing. I just wanted to give you an update. First, thank you all for the kind words. After all this time, it is so fulfilling to see people care. These last 3 + years have been.......interesting...... to say the least 😳. To be forthright, I really didn’t want to re- open. I have struggled with severe depression and other mental issues for numerous years. The sewage issue that plagued our location was a daily reminder......no it was the perfect metaphor, of the unchecked, unmanaged, unstable mental health -I struggle with. I used to hide from this truth. No more. What this time has taught me is that I really don’t care what anyone thinks about my life. What I do know, is that through constant effort I can manage it, and thrive. I realize that everyone has their own struggles and issues. I just got to the point where I needed to step away. I’ve had the good fortune of spending a lot of time in the New Orleans the last couple of years, and I’ve fallen in love with that city. I’ve come to connect with those in the food industry and have come to find there still is a void in the work environment. However, there ARE restaurants in Baton Rouge and New Orleans that DO treat their employees well. And to those I acknowledge and respect greatly, and that is where I like to spend my money , regardless of the menu. Unfortunately, those businesses are not the overwhelming experience for most employees. I want to change that. I want to provide an evironment that I get to invest in THEM. I want the staff to work 4/3. Not working more than four days in a row, and having three days off. I want my team to live their lives, have time to love, and connect with those they cherish. Not be burned out because of work. I want my team to be volunteers in our local community. I want 10% of profits to go back into the surrounding neighborhoods. I want to find people way more talented and better than I, and then do whatever I can to help them reach all their culinary aspirations. I want them to be happy. Can you imagine the quality of your experience, walking into an environment like that? I want to find innovators. For example; science has found a variety of mushrooms that erode plastic into organic material. What if they can prove those mushrooms are safe to eat?? You bet that process would be implemented and those mushrooms would be on the menu! I want to find people no matter their race, gender identity, sexual orientation, background, or age. I just want to surround myself with like minded people that are passionate about this industry. Passionate about the grind. In the process of taking care of them, I’ll be able to take care of myself and be the innovative person I capable of being. If I throw myself back into this marathon, I have to know that it’s about more than just food. I want to implement sustainable practices, both to my staff and with the ingredients. I have proven I can’t do this alone. However, you, our customers, have proven, somehow, that my efforts were not in vain and were even appreciated. I can’t say for sure when this will happen. What I can promise you is that I’m working on it. Know this, I was told by numerous chefs before Truly Free opened, that it wouldn’t work. That I didn’t have the expertise. That I would fail. Well. I really didn’t care about failing. I have already proved them wrong once. Now, I guess, it’s time to make it a habit. Let me “wrap” this up by saying this: I haven’t stated what will be on the menu, but with that type of environment and the experience gained, how could we possibly go wrong? Thank you again for all the kindness. And I hope to be connecting with you through my interpretation of food art both in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. #BEYOURBESTYOU #GOODVIBES

03/15/2017

Happy 15th of March!!!! Great news. Alexander's Market will be carrying the following items from us!!! (With more items to come).

Muffins
Cupcakes
Bread loaves (limited stock but you can always order directly from us )
Banana nut bread
Zucchini Bread.

See you soon!

Erick

02/02/2017

Hello hello everyone!!!!! We have some great news to start.

1. It's been awhile we hope to find you all well.

2. We are slowly bringing back some products from Truly Free. Erick is now with Managed Meals and we will be rolling out a lot of the bakery items for sale.
Currently we are selling our king cakes through Managed Meals directly or you can buy them at Alexander's Market.

3. - we just hired a fantastic staff member to keep up with demand.

4. We will be offering our bread for sale very soon. We will keep you posted as soon as that happens.

5. Birthday cakes and cupcakes are in the very near future.

5. We politely ask to like our Managed Meals page- in order to keep you posted with new information quicker.

6. Please share some of the bakery items you miss most and we will do our best to roll them out quickly for ya!!

7. As for non-bakery food items, we call offer items in bulk and/or depending what you are looking for!!!

https://www.facebook.com/managedmeals/posts/377816685907007:0

We are excited to bring back all those items that you have been missing these last 10 months.

See you soon!!!!

Erick

Don't miss out on these gluten/vegan free King Cakes for only $23.99 (tax included)! Our flavors include: traditional (cinnamon), cream cheese, and strawberry cream cheese! 😋

Need one shipped to you? Pay a flat price of $48 and your King Cake will ship within 48 hours of ordering!

To order one of these King Cakes visit our website to fill out an order form ---> www.mymanagedmeals.com

08/14/2016

Sand bags at fire station on perkins

Come and get them. Filling sand bags at fire station on Perkins.

4025 Perkins road

08/14/2016

Come and get them. Filling sand bags at fire station on Perkins.

4025 Perkins road

04/17/2016

Everyone,

We have some very disheartening and sad news to share with you. We are closing our doors permanently Monday evening. We will be open for our regular time (10am-7pm). We are not wanting to do so, however, we have no choice. We are in a battle with our landlord over a very serious and quite frankly, disgusting issue. We have had major sewer problems for over 3 years, and to our frustration, this problem was never FULLY fixed-only temporary “band aides” were attempted. This issue has persisted and has been more problematic over the last year. We decided to take a stand as a company, hoping that you our family, friends, and customers will join us in not condoning such blatant disregard to our health, our employee’s health, our customer’s health, and anyone that attends the Bull Dog, Spectrum Fitness (and anyone driving through the SouthDowns Village Shopping Center.) By law, we should have to close our doors each and every time this occurs, and that is why we have had to have weird hours, or closing early at times, etc. The landlord even mandated that we couldn’t use paper towels in our own bathrooms, because they could back up our system if flushed down the toilet. (Seriously-how ridiculous is that????!!!) Now realize, even if there are feminine products flushed down the toilet, that shouldn’t cause such turmoil on our sewer system. It’s not like our customers are DAILY raiding our restrooms and placing products down the toilet out of spite. The real issue is that the ancient cast iron sewer line has multiple locations throughout the line that need to be fixed because there are multiple rusted out broken points. (This was confirmed by the landlord’s plumbers-who are of course being paid by our landlord. Yet no permanent problem solving action was taken.) We were hoping to get a humane response from our landlord, willfully communicated that we were no longer paying rent for such treatment. In response, we were called liars and accused of trying to avoid our obligations of paying rent. We waited this long to take action because anytime the business was going through lean times, they worked with us, on a limited basis, and allowed us to catch up on rent. However, that does not condone the lack of action taken by our landlord. I’m sure their response will be to try to vilify us, but as you will see with following pictures that we are speaking truth and taking a stand for what is right. We know how many of you depend on us, and it is heartbreaking to have to take away the one true safe haven that you have, but we hope that justice will prevail and that we can serve you in the future again soon. We hope you will take a stand with us and spread the word. Please message us for we will try to attempt to cater for those that need our products. One last bit of information for you to call and complain-
Our landlord is Donnie Jarreau Real Estate Inc. 225-753-3373. Owned by SouthDowns Village Group, L.L.C (various partners) and our manger is Gloria. Feel free to call and complain.

To End on a positive note.
Ainsley and I feel so blessed and honored to serve you all. We started out over 7 years ago trying to build something that didn’t exist anywhere else. There obviously is a need here, and we are grateful for all these years of serving our community. We are so blessed to have been able to get to know you through the years. We hoped that with each meal, we were blessing you-blessing you with quality food made with quality ingredients. We wanted to be the restaurant that ACTUALLY cared about each and every order, bakery or deli. We wanted to be the restaurant where you our customers could come in and know, we have never been about the money, we never been about the bottom line-our only desire was to serve and bless you with our food. We hope that the sun is not setting permanently, but only time will tell. We thank you for all the memories, for the grace for allowing our growing pains, and we thank you for your continued business throughout the years. The worst part about all this is that we feel that we are failing you. We pray you can see past that failure, and know we worked hard, long hours, and even though we weren’t perfect, we couldn’t have cared anymore…..we gave all that we had……..

Until the next time……….
Naturally Healthy. Truly Tasty
Erick and Ainsley Coughlin

04/17/2016

Absolutely disgusting

04/17/2016

Hello Everyone,

We have some very disheartening and sad news to share with you. We are closing our doors permanently Monday evening. We will be open for our regular time (10am-7pm). We are not wanting to do so, however, we have no choice. We are in a battle with our landlord over a very serious and quite frankly, disgusting issue. We have had major sewer problems for over 3 years, and to our frustration, this problem was never FULLY fixed-only temporary “band aides” were attempted. This issue has persisted and has been more problematic over the last year. We decided to take a stand as a company, hoping that you our family, friends, and customers will join us in not condoning such blatant disregard to our health, our employee’s health, our customer’s health, and anyone that attends the Bull Dog, Spectrum Fitness (and anyone driving through the SouthDowns Village Shopping Center.) By law, we should have to close our doors each and every time this occurs, and that is why we have had to have weird hours, or closing early at times, etc. The landlord even mandated that we couldn’t use paper towels in our own bathrooms, because they could back up our system if flushed down the toilet. (Seriously-how ridiculous is that????!!!) Now realize, even if there are feminine products flushed down the toilet, that shouldn’t cause such turmoil on our sewer system. It’s not like our customers are DAILY raiding our restrooms and placing products down the toilet out of spite. The real issue is that the ancient cast iron sewer line has multiple locations throughout the line that need to be fixed because there are multiple rusted out broken points. (This was confirmed by the landlord’s plumbers-who are of course being paid by our landlord. Yet no permanent problem solving action was taken.) We were hoping to get a humane response from our landlord, willfully communicated that we were no longer paying rent for such treatment. In response, we were called liars and accused of trying to avoid our obligations of paying rent. We waited this long to take action because anytime the business was going through lean times, they worked with us, on a limited basis, and allowed us to catch up on rent. However, that does not condone the lack of action taken by our landlord. I’m sure their response will be to try to vilify us, but as you will see with following pictures that we are speaking truth and taking a stand for what is right. We know how many of you depend on us, and it is heartbreaking to have to take away the one true safe haven that you have, but we hope that justice will prevail and that we can serve you in the future again soon. We hope you will take a stand with us and spread the word. Please message us for we will try to attempt to cater for those that need our products. One last bit of information for you to call and complain-
Our landlord is Donnie Jarreau Real Estate Inc. 225-753-3373. Owned by SouthDowns Village Group, L.L.C (various partners) and our manger is Gloria. Feel free to call and complain.

To End on a positive note.
Ainsley and I feel so blessed and honored to serve you all. We started out over 7 years ago trying to build something that didn’t exist anywhere else. There obviously is a need here, and we are grateful for all these years of serving our community. We are so blessed to have been able to get to know you through the years. We hoped that with each meal, we were blessing you-blessing you with quality food made with quality ingredients. We wanted to be the restaurant that ACTUALLY cared about each and every order, bakery or deli. We wanted to be the restaurant where you our customers could come in and know, we have never been about the money, we never been about the bottom line-our only desire was to serve and bless you with our food. We hope that the sun is not setting permanently, but only time will tell. We thank you for all the memories, for the grace for allowing our growing pains, and we thank you for your continued business throughout the years. The worst part about all this is that we feel that we are failing you. We pray you can see past that failure, and know we worked hard, long hours, and even though we weren’t perfect, we couldn’t have cared anymore…..we gave all that we had……..

Until the next time……….

Naturally Healthy. Truly Tasty
Erick and Ainsley Coughlin

04/15/2016

Our new hours are from 10:00am- 7 pm Mon-Sat.

04/08/2016

We are closing early today for a private party and tomorrow our hours will be 8am to 3pm. We have to close early again for a wedding!!!! Have a great day.

03/09/2016

We are looking to hire a full time server from 8am-5 pm and part time servers as well. Please message us if you are interested.

03/07/2016

We will be closed this Saturday, March 12th, for the St. Patrick's day parade.

02/24/2016

We are going ahead and closing early....please be safe everyone!

02/23/2016

We are open today! We're available for our usual business hours, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., and we will notify you all if that changes. We look forward to seeing you!

02/18/2016

Terrific Tuesday Everyone!!!!!
This Week's Specials are:

1. CRAWFISH ETOUFFEE!!!! Come try our HEALTHY Cajun style etouffee that comes with one cup of brown rice and a slice of our toast.
Jambalaya- chicken and apple sausage, organic free range chicken- comes with one side.
3. Salmon Bowl- your choice of brown rice or quinoa, comes with mixed veggies, and your choice of sauce.
4. Red Snapper Bowl- your choice of brown rice or quinoa, comes with mixed veggies, and your choice of sauce.

Naturally Healthy.
Truly Tasty.

02/12/2016

Happy Friday! We have plenty of options for healthy eating, Lent, Paleo, Whole 30. Whatever your needs are.
See you soon.

Naturally Healthy.
Truly Tasty

02/10/2016

Need special treats for your sweetheart?? We are introducing new heart shaped bunt cakes. They come in 3 flavors- Vanilla, Chocolate, and Red Velvet.

02/10/2016

Happy Wednesday!!! For those who are wanting to eat extremely healthy now that yourMardi Gras celebration is over, we are bringing back Salmon Bowls and Red Snapper Bowls.

Naturally Healthy.
Truly Tasty.

02/09/2016

Happy Mardi Gras everyone. We are open today!!

02/08/2016

Happy Monday!!!! We are open and will have normal business hours Monday and Tuesday, and throughout the week as well.
See you soon,

Naturally Healthy.
Truly Tasty.

01/05/2016

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!

Hope you are all well this new year!

Just wanted to let you know 2 important things.

1. KING CAKES ARE NOW IN!!!

We have 2 sizes- Large and mini. Large are $22.00 and mini are $7.50
Flavors include:
Traditional, Cream Cheese, Strawberry Cream Cheese, Blueberry, Pecan and Zulu.

2. We will be delivering East of Baton Rouge Friday, and WEST of Baton Rouge on Saturday. Please have your orders in ASAP.

If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Naturally Healthy. Truly Tasty.