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This Week's Edition
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The Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival kicks off May 1-3 in the Crawfish Capital of the World while Jazz Fest Weekend 2 wraps up the greatest music festival on earth. From 30 bands across three stages in Breaux Bridge to the Eagles and Earth Wind & Fire at the Fair Grounds, Louisiana is celebrating crawfish, music, and spring all weekend long.
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APRIL 28–MAY 4, 2026
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Crawfish Capital Comes Alive
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| This is the weekend the Crawfish Capital of the World comes alive. | | The Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival kicks off May 1-3 with 30 bands across three stages playing Cajun, Zydeco, and Swamp Pop. Crawfish cooked every way imaginable—étouffée, bisque, boudin, pie, fried, boiled, stuffed into every dish you can think of. A crawfish cook-off. An eating contest. Dance contests. The whole town celebrating the crustacean that put Breaux Bridge on the map. | | And while Breaux Bridge fires up the crawfish pots, Jazz Fest Weekend 2 wraps up the greatest music festival on earth. The Eagles headline Sunday. Lainey Wilson, The Black Keys, Widespread Panic, Earth Wind & Fire, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Herbie Hancock, and Ziggy Marley all perform this weekend. The final roar of Jazz Fest 2026. | | Thibodaux hosts the Firemen's Fair. Alexandria celebrates arts and culture on the banks of the Red River with AlexRiverFête. Across Louisiana, music, food, and community energy fill the weekend.
| | Perfect spring weather. Crawfish season in full swing. And from Breaux Bridge to New Orleans to Alexandria, Louisiana is doing what it does best—celebrating. Here's what's happening across the state—April 28 through May 4. |
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What's Happening in Your Area Code
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🎺 New Orleans / Kenner / Metairie - 504
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New Orleans turns into one giant music festival
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| New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — Weekend 2 |
| Fair Grounds Race Course, New Orleans · April 30-May 3, 2026 |
| Weekend 2 headliners include the Eagles, Lainey Wilson, The Black Keys, Widespread Panic, Earth Wind & Fire, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Herbie Hancock, and Ziggy Marley. The second and final weekend of the greatest music festival on the planet, and it goes out with a roar. |
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| Live Music: |
| Tin Roof Brewing Company and Red Dragon Listening Room have weekend shows. |
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Lafayette / Acadiana Area - 337
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Louisiana opens spring with one giant celebration
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| Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival |
| Breaux Bridge · May 1-3, 2026 |
| The crown jewel of the 337 spring season. Live Cajun, Zydeco, and Swamp Pop music with 30 bands across three stages, crawfish prepared every way imaginable including étouffée, bisque, boudin, and pie, plus dance contests, a crawfish cook-off, and an eating contest. If you only do one Louisiana festival this spring, make it this one. |
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🚤 Houma / Thibodaux / Bayou Country - 985
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| Thibodaux Firemen's Fair |
| Thibodaux · April 30-May 3, 2026 |
| One of the great Louisiana community fairs, where the rides, the food, the live music, and the sense of small-town Louisiana pride all hit at the same time. A tradition that never gets old. |
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🌲 Shreveport / North Louisiana - 318
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| AlexRiverFête |
| Downtown Alexandria · April 30-May 2, 2026 |
| AlexRiverFête celebrates the arts, culture, and heritage of Central Louisiana on the banks of the Red River with Dinner on the Bricks, ArtWalk, Que'in on the Red BBQ, live music, street performers, craft displays, and kids activities. Free admission, free parking, pure Central Louisiana pride all weekend long |
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| How Breaux Bridge Became the Crawfish Capital of the World |
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| In 1959, the Louisiana Legislature officially declared Breaux Bridge the Crawfish Capital of the World. |
| It happened during the town's centennial celebration. Breaux Bridge was celebrating 100 years since its incorporation, and someone suggested the state legislature give the town an official title tied to crawfish. Speaker of the House Bob Angelle made it official. |
There was just one problem. The crawfish didn't cooperate that year. The harvest was terrible. Angelle contacted the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and pushed them to increase commercial crawfish farming, encourage harvesting, and expand the crawfish industry across Louisiana.
It worked. And in 1960, Breaux Bridge launched the first Crawfish Festival as a continuation of the centennial celebration.
The festival grew fast. By the 1970s, it had become one of the largest gatherings of Cajun, Zydeco, and Swamp Pop musicians in Louisiana. Today, 30 bands perform across three stages all weekend long. Thousands of people come from across the country to eat crawfish cooked every way imaginable—boiled, fried, étouffée, bisque, boudin, pie, jambalaya, and crawfish stuffed into dishes you didn't know existed.
Breaux Bridge restaurants were the first in the United States to feature crawfish on their menus. Crawfish étouffée was created here. The festival runs the first full weekend of May every year, right in the heart of peak crawfish season, when Louisiana's crawfish ponds and rice fields are producing millions of pounds of the little red crustaceans that define Louisiana spring.
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| This weekend, the Crawfish Capital of the World comes alive again. |
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| You already know this one well, but do you know how it started? |
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| This Louisiana tradition starts with a massive pot of boiling water, seasoned with cayenne, paprika, garlic, onions, bay leaves, and lemons.
| | You add red potatoes and let them boil for about five minutes. Then you add live crawfish and corn on the cob. The water turns bright red as the crawfish cook. After about four minutes, you turn off the heat and let everything soak in the spiced water for 20 to 30 minutes so the flavors soak deep into the meat. | | Then you drain it all, dump it on a newspaper-covered table, and everyone gathers around to peel and eat with their hands | | The tradition has roots going back centuries. Native American tribes along the Gulf Coast boiled shellfish and vegetables over open fires. Acadian settlers who arrived in Louisiana in 1755 brought French communal cooking traditions and a love for bold flavors. Enslaved Africans introduced the spice blends and slow-cooking methods that define Louisiana cuisine today—gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice—and elevated the seafood boil into the flavor-packed feast Louisiana knows now. | | By the 1980s, technology allowed live crawfish to be shipped safely across the country, and the tradition exploded in popularity. But the best place to experience it is still Louisiana, where spring and early summer mean crawfish season, and Friday nights mean propane tanks firing up backyard pots all across the state | | It's not just a meal. It's an event. A celebration. A gathering built on bold flavor, community, and crawfish pulled fresh from Louisiana's rice fields and swamps. |
| The answer: The crawfish boil |
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| Louisiana Classics |
| Where Don Landry Borrowed $400 and Started a Cajun Seafood Tradition |
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| | 4309 Johnston Street, Lafayette (and 5 other Louisiana locations | | In 1934, 24-year-old Don Landry borrowed $400 from his uncle and opened Don's Beer Parlor in downtown Lafayette. | | It was a casual hangout with a dirt floor where friendly folks served cold drinks and simple dishes. Fresh local seafood. Cajun flavors. Classic drinks. The building was the same spot where Don's father had operated a butcher shop. | | In 1939, Don's brother Ashby joined him, and together they built the business into something bigger. They moved locations, upgraded the restaurant, and kept the focus on what mattered: fresh Gulf seafood cooked the Cajun way with recipes passed down through the family. | | The menu featured catfish, shrimp, oysters, crawfish, gumbo, and étouffée—all made from the freshest local seafood bought daily from local markets. Each dish was carefully selected, perfectly seasoned, and expertly prepared. The Holy Trinity—bell peppers, onion, and celery—formed the base of every recipe. | | Don's Seafood grew over the decades. Today, four generations of the Landry family still own and operate six locations across Louisiana. The downtown Lafayette location remains a local favorite, with a wood-countered bar lined with big-screen TVs where customers belly up for Don's Classic Old Fashioned and margaritas. The cozy, welcoming atmosphere feels like a "Cheers" setting—locals know each other, and everyone feels like family. | | The restaurant employs over 600 people across Louisiana and has become a landmark for authentic Cajun cuisine. | | What started as a $400 loan and a dirt-floor bar in 1934 has become a Louisiana institution, still serving the same fresh Gulf seafood and Cajun tradition Don Landry envisioned 92 years ago. |
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| A Note from Our Sponsor |
BayouRoots |
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Dear Louisiana Reader,
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| I want to tell you something about your last name. |
| Whether it's been in Louisiana for six generations, or your family arrived more recently — your surname touched this state at a specific moment in history. A parish. A year. A reason. And that story is sitting inside the historical record, waiting to be told. |
| That's what BayouRoots does. We research your family's first known connection to Louisiana and put it in your hands — not guesswork, not assumptions. Documented history. |
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"I had no idea my grandmother's family name showed up in Pointe Coupee Parish records from 1822. BayouRoots found it in an afternoon."
— A BayouRoots subscriber
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| This week, you can get your family's Louisiana surname report for $19.99 — that's $10 off the regular price — when you use the code LAUNCH at checkout. |
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With warm regards from the bayou country,
The BayouRoots Team
family.louisianathisweek.com
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Music and motion take over the Crawfish Capital
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| This is the weekend the Crawfish Capital of the World comes alive. | | Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival runs May 1-3 with 30 bands, crawfish cooked every way imaginable, cook-offs, eating contests, and the whole town celebrating. Jazz Fest Weekend 2 wraps up the greatest music festival on earth with the Eagles, Earth Wind & Fire, Herbie Hancock, and Louisiana's own Trombone Shorty. Thibodaux hosts the Firemen's Fair. Alexandria celebrates arts and culture on the Red River. | | From Breaux Bridge to New Orleans to Alexandria, Louisiana is doing what it does best—celebrating music, food, and community. Perfect spring weather. Peak crawfish season. And the weekend goes out with a roar. | | Until next time, |
| Michael |
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