"Can you build a meal using ingredients gathered within a five-mile vicinity of where you stand?”

This, and the promise of community-supported agriculture, was the challenge that initially propelled partners Sarah Trotter and Kelsey Leger when they began catering private dinners and pop-ups in Arnaudville, Louisiana, in 2022. Calling themselves “Five Mile,” they were able to source almost all of their ingredients within the parameters they’d set by their name, in the process connecting their kitchen to the larger project of developing a more vibrant local food system.

They planned for a brick-and-mortar location in nearby Lafayette. Leger, having honed her professional skills in kitchens in New York City and New Orleans, had already wowed Acadiana as chef/co-founder of Scratch Farm Kitchen. Trotter, a self-proclaimed computer geek, took a series of detailed projections to local banks in search of a loan to open a restaurant with a menu built around locally-sourced, sustainably produced ingredients. Every one of them told her, “No, this is unrealistic.”  But a small group of women, including a grandma investor, bankrolled the endeavor with a collection of microloans. 

“Lafayette really values thoughtful, high-quality food and experiences. People here love sharing good meals with friends and family."

—Sarah Trotter, co-owner of Five Mile Eatery

In April, 2023, Leger and Trotter opened Five Mile Eatery in Lafayette’s Oil Center, a historic business district that was developed in the 1950s to serve Acadiana’s burgeoning oil economy, and which today has expanded to include restaurants, retail shops, and healthcare services, connected by avenues of walkability. 

“We surpassed all of our projections on day one. I couldn’t believe it,” said Trotter. “Lafayette really values thoughtful, high-quality food and experiences. People here love sharing good meals with friends and family. Word of mouth is huge in Acadiana. We’ve grown mostly through community support rather than heavy advertising, which says a lot about the demand for local, intentional food.” Trotter noted that now, in year three; the restaurant continues to exceed her own initial projections.

Over the years, as the business has grown, so has its food-sourcing radius—which today extends considerably further than five miles, encompassing Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, though Five Mile Eatery maintains its initial commitment to sourcing as many ingredients as possible from small, regional businesses the partners can cite by name. 

“As Five Mile grew into a full-time restaurant with daily service, we realized there simply aren’t enough small local farms [in the immediate vicinity] to fully support the volume and consistency we need for our entire food and drink program,” Trotter said. Their dedicated support of the ones that do exist, though, plots a hopeful path towards a more robust local agriculture system in the future. 

While many restaurants utilize conveniently pre-cut ingredients, Leger is excited when fresh beets come in with a little mud still clinging to them. Preparing fresh-from-the-farm produce frees her to be adventurous in the kitchen—and, she asserts, makes for more delicious food that looks prettier on the plate. “Our customers tell us they can taste the difference, and that’s the best compliment we can ever get,” said Trotter.

“Sourcing locally is still incredibly important to us, and we do it whenever possible,” she continued. To fill in the gaps in availability, Trotter and Leger are especially grateful to food purveyors like JV Foods out of New Orleans, which acts as a farm-to-table distributor for the Gulf South, working directly with smaller farmers and helping get their products into restaurants consistently. 

“It’s a massive undertaking, and we’re constantly singing JV Foods’ praises because they make regional sourcing much more realistic for businesses like ours,” Trotter said.

While constraining at times, the focus on local sourcing has inspired a creative menu that blurs the line between breakfast and lunch, with tasty, unexpected surprises like Louisiana sweet potatoes served as a breakfast side, or iced tea made with North America’s only native source of caffeine—yaupon holly sustainably harvested in Texas, by Cat Spring Yaupon. Wild mushroom toast and several other menu items are served on crunchy sourdough bread made with fresh, organic milled flour by Lafayette’s Straw Cove Baking Company. 

Three years into their eatery endeavor, Trotter, Leger, and their team have come to approach the five-mile concept from a new perspective. They are less focused on the question, “What can we get within five miles?” and more about, “What can we give back within this radius? How can we foster local community and make a positive impact within our vicinity?”

The community building begins in the kitchen, where Trotter and Leger encourage their employees to contribute significant input. “We have a strong team,” said Leger. “It's nice to not feel the load is only on us. There are other people with different opinions and perspectives, which come in handy.”

That collaborative approach spills from the back-of-house into the cozy dining area—a space that welcomes sweet potato-mashing children and well-dressed professionals alike. Staff bops around ensuring customers are well attended-to, and also understand how to use the available self-service areas—which include a unique table-clearing station with separate bins for dishwashing, recycling, landfilling, glass recycling with Backyard Sapphire, and composting with the Worm Lady. If team members are not available, experienced customers tend to jump in to help newbies. 

“The space is very interactive,” said Trotter. “It’s fun to watch people educating each other.” 

In addition to the sense of community and exchange happening inside the Five Mile space—Trotter and Leger have reached beyond the eatery itself. Last fall, they hosted a 5K “farm to pavement” fun run, which started and ended at the restaurant—funnelling runners through the Oil Center, a nearby neighborhood, and Girard Park. A portion of the proceeds was earmarked to support the Acadiana Food Alliance, whose mission is “to unite people, ideas, and resources to grow the culture and economy of Acadiana’s local food system.” The duo say they hope to host another such event later this fall. 

Living within five blocks of the eatery, I am often drawn by the shiny neon okra signage out front. On a recent morning, I stopped in around 10:30 am and quickly opted for the thick, beefy co-op burger with a golden latte as a second breakfast. 

While savoring my burger, layered with Guidry Organic Farm’s grass-fed beef, pickled red onions, basil mayo, and crispy lettuce—all artfully housed within a sweet potato bun—I overheard a fellow diner telling his friend, “As a vegan there aren’t many places I can really chow down, but this is one of them, and it’s not just rabbit food, it’s really good!”

Even to my carnivorous eye, his bright green salad looked tempting, with nuts, blueberries, and tempeh croutons generously scattered about; but not as tempting as my breakfast burger. I wouldn’t get hungry for lunch that day until well after suppertime. 

Walking out of the eatery, I ran into Nicole Johnson—recognizing her as a farmer from the Lafayette Farmers and Artisans Market. The golden latte—which gets its delicious spicy earthiness from Johnson’s turmeric—was still on my tongue. I felt a little star struck, and delightfully connected.

fivemileeatery.com