Da Levee was going to break.
The Cajun and Creole restaurant at 765 N. High St. in the Short North wasn’t starving for sales, having doubled annual receipts every year since 2011, but if business was going to continue to grow, owner Justin Boehme’s shop needed to get creative.
“We didn’t really have the space to let people hang out,” he told me Monday. “They’d get their food and then rush out because others were waiting for seats.”
He just wrapped an expansion at the Columbus restaurant that managed to double seating while not adding to the 1,300-square-foot space. The restaurant seats 52 inside after rearranging some space, including shortening the counter and getting rid of a beverage cooler.
This past weekend was Da Levee’s first Short North Gallery Hop with its expanded layout.
“Saturday was our third busiest day ever,” Boehme said. “That’s just from having more seats.”
The timing is good – Tuesday is Mardi Gras.
Boehme opened in 2010 and has been adding to the business since, first a full bar back in 2013, then a patio last fall that he expects to reap the full benefit of starting this spring. That’s an additional 12 seats for the warm weather days.
He opened a second restaurant last year at 129 N. Stygler Road in Gahanna, a space that also serves as his commissary for catering work. Da Levee has seven employees between the two operations.
Boehme also rolled out a permanent, printed menu for the restaurants. Until now the menu had been a chalkboard of rotating daily specials, plus po’boy sandwiches and po-rrito wraps. Gumbo, for instance, is available every day. There will continue to be a daily special or two. Monday is all-you-can-eat red beans and rice, for example.
Boehme said he raised prices on some dishes – his first price increases since opening – driven by rising seafood costs, but he cut prices elsewhere. The restaurant offers its po’boys on butter buns in addition to French bread. The butter buns are lower cost and lower proportion for those who may want a hearty taste of the sandwich, but maybe not its traditional heft.
He also created a $13 combo that includes a butter bun po-boy, a cup of any roux or stew and a side salad, while a new lunch special is a side salad, drink and roux or stew for under $10.
Da Levee also is making a bigger push for catering, which always was offered, but with the large kitchen at the Gahanna restaurant, Boehme said he’s able to take on more of those orders. He started offering a Mardi Gras party kit catering package for the annual event, but he plans to continue to offer that deal once the celebration period is over.
The restaurant also hosts a weekly “scoop shop” pop-up on Thursdays at the Ohio Taproom at 1291 W. Third Ave. near Grandview Heights.