Cafe Rue Orleans Plans January Opening

Maudie Schmitt and Carla Williams plan to open Cafe Rue Orleans in January at 1150 N. College Ave. in Fayetteville.

The building previously housed Cafe de Paris, which was operated by Ghazi Issa. Before that, the building housed Ghazi’s Pesto Cafe.

Schmitt, a native of New Orleans, said the restaurant would serve the kind of Creole and Cajun food that made the Crescent City famous.

In addition to New Orleans favorites like po-boy sandwiches, red beans and rice, and crawfish etouffee, the restaurant will have cooking supplies such as spices and hot sauces for sale. Schmitt said frozen French bread would be flown in regularly from bakeries in New Orleans.

Schmitt taught school in Crowley, La., for 25 years before moving to Northwest Arkansas last summer. Schmitt also ran a catering company and won several cooking awards in the Lafayette, La., area and “was pretty much the in-house chef at school.”

Both Schmitt and Williams, who is from Camden, descended from long lines of restaurateurs.

Schmitt said she started looking for a restaurant location in Northwest Arkansas two years ago after reading a Smart Money magazine article that rated Northwest Arkansas one of the best places in the country to live. Schmitt attended Henderson State College in Arkadelphia and vacationed in Northwest Arkansas with her parents during her childhood.

The restaurant initially will be open for lunch and dinner Wednesday through Saturday. Dinner entrees will range from $8-$15. Lunch prices will range from $5-$8.

Although the Ghazi’s Pesto Cafe that is now open at 1830 N. College Ave. in Fayetteville uses Issa’s original menu and recipes, Issa has no affiliation with that restaurant.

Cafe de Paris has been closed since mid-October.