Think about the last time you visited a city you’d never been to before. Not for business — just to go. What made you decide to stay somewhere? What made you feel like the place wanted you there?

Most of the time, we don’t give a lot of credit to the people who set that stage. The campground owner who keeps a shuttle running at midnight so you can get back safely from the French Quarter. The art curator who figured out that if he put a show up in a doctor’s office, more people would see it than in any gallery. These are the people who decide, quietly and without much fanfare, what kind of place a city is going to be.

Camping

Mike Dunn did not grow up dreaming of owning a campground. He grew up on a dairy farm in Maryland, spent his career running cranes and heavy equipment, and took a wrong turn somewhere around 2011 that led him to a night attendant job at the New Orleans KOA — which, as wrong turns go, turned out pretty well.

Within six months, KOA had promoted him to run the park. A few years after that, he and his wife Deborah bought it. They are now in their third year as owners of the New Orleans KOA Holiday in River Ridge — 100 RV sites, three deluxe lodges, 12 full-time employees, shuttle service to the French Quarter and the Superdome, a souvenir shop, a dog park, and a recreation hall.

For most of its history the park’s guests were 60% international. Canadians, Europeans, Australians. In the last year or so that has flipped to 90% domestic. Mike and Deborah are figuring out what that means for a business built around introducing the world to New Orleans.

If you're wondering what a person with a business in New Orleans is doing on a show about Baton Rouge business - well, people who stay in an RV park are generally not people who live in the same city as the RV park. So I thought it might be useful for those of us here in Baton Rouge who visit New Orleans to know about it.

Art

Keidrick Alford grew up in Zachary, Louisiana. His parents let him draw on the walls. That tells you most of what you need to know.

He went to college, spent time in real estate, then nearly a decade in hospitality — long hours, demanding work, not a lot left over at the end of the day. The whole time, he was watching something on the side: Baton Rouge was turning out artists from LSU who had no idea what to do with themselves once they left. The business side of being an artist — contracts, galleries, marketing, pricing — nobody was helping them with any of that.

In 2018, Keidrick started Ellemnop to fill that gap. Since then, he’s curated nearly 90 exhibitions — in galleries, in medical offices, in whatever space made sense. Today he’s a managing partner in The Pearl, a 5,000-square-foot warehouse in Old South Baton Rouge that will house gallery space, artist residencies, and apprenticeship programs in bodyshop work, barbering, and welding. Yes, all in the same building.

There’s a word that comes up a lot when you talk to Mike and Keidrick, and that word is “guests.” Mike uses it for the people who pull into his campground, and Keidrick uses it for the people who walk into his exhibitions. They both mean the same thing by it: these are people who trusted you with their time, and you don’t waste it.

Mike went to New Orleans planning to stay a little while. Keidrick has been in Baton Rouge his whole life, looking for ways to make it worth staying. Different journeys, same destination.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Ian Ledo and Miranda Albarez at itsbatonrouge.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.