SELLERSBURG — A new restaurant in Sellersburg functions an eclectic range of dishes encouraged by avenue food from close to the environment.
FaiDodos opened past Tuesday at 7815 Highway 311. The eatery functions a rotating selection of dishes ranging from loaded fries to pizza rolls.
Owner Hunter O’Dell moved back again to his hometown of Sellersburg from Arizona through the pandemic just after losing careers all through the shutdown. His father owns the FaiDodos creating, which has been property to several organizations during the a long time, and he inspired O’Dell to open his very own cafe.
He made the decision to open FaiDodos with company partner Jesse Jewell, who is his close friend from large college. O’Dell has working experience in the cafe industry as a bartender.
The cafe is impressed by the ambiance of New Orleans, and its identify comes from the Cajun phrase fais-dodo, which refers to a style of dancing social gathering, O’Dell mentioned.
“New Orleans is 1 of my most loved metropolitan areas, I really like the songs, I love the vibrancy of it,” he reported. “I appreciate that in the French Quarter you can wander 10 toes and you may well have a cowboy bar and a rock ‘n roll bar and then like a Cajun cafe. There are so a lot of points packed in, and I just like that plan of obtaining this aspect in excess of in this article is a little diverse from that aspect above there.”
Despite the fact that FaiDodos is impressed by New Orleans, it isn’t a Cajun restaurant, and the menu in fact offers a variety of food from numerous cuisines. Highlights incorporate loaded fries with toppings this sort of as Canadian-fashion poutine, gyro, gumbo, Philly cheesesteak and pulled pork.
“We went with fries, for the reason that getting a brand-new restaurant, fries are rather price tag-successful, and making an attempt to get off the floor following COVID and becoming a regionally-owned spot, we required to go with some thing that we could do excellent but also get us off the floor,” O’Dell reported.
The gyro, Philly cheesecake and pulled pork selections can also be requested as sandwiches as an alternative of loaded fries, and 1 can just have a bowl of gumbo if they choose it without having the fries.
Other treats involve edamame, samosas, dipping trays and seasoned fries with chipotle aioli sauce. The restaurant also presents “pep rolls,” or crispy egg rolls stuffed with pizza components these kinds of as pepperoni, pizza sauce and mozzarella.
“We wished to make sure you received a probability to check out some foodstuff that are very little extra cultural and from close to the globe,” he stated. “The greatest inspiration was avenue foodstuff from around the earth. A ton of moments you have to go to specific food-fashion dining establishments to get the goods we have.”
O’Dell expects people today will tire of the loaded fries following a though, so he appears forward to the opportunity to modify up the menu. He compare FaiDodos to a food stuff truck “where we can be any type of foodstuff truck we want to be.”
“They are points that you would discover on food trucks, like if you have been strolling to bars and you’re going for walks down the road and there are some late-evening distributors and whatnot,” he claimed.
The restaurant also features many dessert possibilities. For the beignets, FaiDodos works by using the common Cafe Du Monde blend to make fried pastries. The sweet treats also consist of “sweet potato madness,” or sweet potato fries topped with brown sugar, apples, cinnamon sugar, marshmallow sauce, caramel and ice cream.
The “dodo bites” consist of a rotating range of deep-fried desserts, and this thirty day period, the cafe is featuring a peanut butter, banana and marshmallow “fluffer nutter.”
O’Dell explained FaiDodos has not nonetheless obtained its liquor license, but there are programs to inevitably offer beer and wine. Business commenced sluggish final 7 days as the restaurant opened, and the wintry climate shut it down for a couple days.
But enterprise has been rising about the past week, and the phrase spread promptly, he stated.
“We didn’t establish it up at all, so we type of permit individuals just organically see the open up sign, see our social media, see hey, we’re eventually open up and naturally, we’re on the busiest road in Sellersburg with individuals driving by and observing that,” O’Dell mentioned.
