Studer Community Institute

Bringing the Ruby Slipper Cafe to Pensacola

April 17, 2015
/ Shannon Nickinson
/ economy

What do a couple of engineers know about breakfast? Pensacola is about to find out. And by the way, they know plenty. Erich and Jennifer Weishaupt started The Ruby Slipper Cafe in their Mid City neighborhood in New Orleans in 2008. They have four locations now — five when this summer rolls around and Pensacola is added to the list. “Most businesses here go to Metarie or the West Bank … for us its was, ‘Let’s do something out of the box,’” Erich Weishaupts says. “We wanted to do something different.” To the Weishaupts, that meant coming to Pensacola, a community they’ve visited for years as a getaway. They recently bought a home on Pensacola Beach, which gives them a home away from home. “We like it because it’s close enough,” Erich Weishaupt says. “With (three) young kids, it’s like three hours from New Orleans is perfect. You can get three hours without the kids fussing too much.” Weishaupt says he grew up in Alabama and has Pensacola memories dating to his teenage years. “I remember being in downtown Pensacola and it not really being much, so I was really amazed at how much Pensacola and downtown has exploded,” he says. Erich manages the couple’s restaurants; Jennifer maintains her “day job” with Shell Oil as a project manager. They started the first Ruby Slipper because they wanted a breakfast place in their neighborhood. They had been flipping property and have renovated 26 or 27 houses in a six-by-six-block radius, when a building that had been a corner store came open. Urged on by their neighbors and powered by the spreadsheet they found when they Googled “how to open a restaurant,” they went for it. “The goal was to break even the first year,” he says. “We looked at it as a good asset for the neighborhood, something that would help property values, and it took off from there.” Then came the Magazine Street location in the Central Business District. A location on Canal Street near the newly rehabbed Saenger Theatre is doing well, too. “It’s a big step for us, to come over here and prove our concept outside of New Orleans,” he says. “We really want to be part of the community. This is a good next step for us. We came to find out there are so many people (in Pensacola) who already know us, because of the ties between the two communities.” They scouted a couple of locations before settling in on Palafox just south of al fresco in part of the building that once housed Trader Jon’s bar. Weishaupt says the pending opening of the Holiday Inn Express near Main and Jefferson streets, development of the Community Maritime Park and apartments planned at the former Pensacola News Journal building at Romana and Jefferson streets are all good omens for the Ruby Slipper. “We feel like we’ll get the tourist business as we get known there, because tourists come downtown now because of all the shops,” he says. “You know you can’t stay just at the beach for a week. Once you get ‘em once. What we found here, if people are in town, they may eat at one of our locations, and they’ll come back every day and then the bartenders say they’ll see them again next year. And we want to become part of Pensacola, too.” That means wooing and winning locals, too, as the place for brunch or breakfast meetings. [caption id="attachment_21733" align="alignright" width="450"]

The Ruby Slipper Cafe's bananas foster pain perdu.[/caption] “We need the locals to support us, too, those folks who just eat egg white omelets or yogurt parfaits, who are trying to eat healthy — if you eat our food every day,” he says, laughing. “It’s a struggle.” Indeed, with menu items including bananas foster pain perdu, eggs cochon and eggs blackstone, sometimes calories are best not contemplated. It is important to Weishaupt to continue his connection with the community by sourcing local ingredients when possible, as he does at his New Orleans restaurants. He also wants to continue the commitment to community service that he and his wife have in New Orleans. Their children attend public school there. He and his wife were very active in their neighborhood association, and they work to help nonprofits and the education system in New Orleans. “We want to be part of the community,” he says. “As long as you do the right thing, put out a good product, provide great service, at the end of the day, the financial piece will come because people will come.” The original plan was to open Memorial Day weekend, but that now is likely to be pushed back a couple of weeks, Weishaupt says. “Everybody over there has just been so friendly,” he says. “Everyone we’ve met has asked, ‘What can I do to help?’”

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