Louis Ochoa makes good on personal promise to find success in his life
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – There weren’t many positive lessons Louis Ochoa learned during his childhood as he grew up in New Orleans with an alcoholic father who left the family when he was 10.
But the one lesson he did learn as his mother did her best to raise Ochoa and his brother was this: “I wanted to be a good father to my children, and I knew I never wanted to be poor again.”
Ochoa is 50 years of age now and did more than make good on that promise to himself. From his teen years when he walked to his job at Popeye’s every day, Ochoa has never stopped working as hard as anyone could, and the result is that he has quietly become one of the most successful Slidell businessmen around.
Ochoa could easily be the poster child for taking advantage of the American dream, available for anyone who wants to work for it. And that is the thing he now tries to teach his employees who work for him.
These days that means anywhere close to 100 employees who work at his NOLA Southern Grill restaurant, Pinewood Country Club, The Sadie Jane wedding and events center, The Villa events center, his extensive catering business, and most recently, his purchase of the former Casa Blanca Center where NOLA Grill is located—now renamed Southern Place.
Along with his many businesses, Ochoa purchased his first home at the age of 21, starting what would later turn into a real estate portfolio now past 75 units and worth millions. He owns everything from single family homes to duplexes, fourplexes and commercial property.
How did he go from a young man living on his own at the age of 16, with no path to success like so many others, to one of the most respected and successful business leaders in St. Tammany Parish?
“It’s not a magic formula. A lot of things are easy to get, but hard to keep, and that means you never quit working hard,” he said. “You can’t ever get comfortable.”
As his success built, most of which exploded in the past 10 years, Ochoa now tries to teach each employee those same principles, which have guided him to success in life and business.
“The thing that we most need to teach young people today is a work ethic. It’s not the way it used to be, so I try to model it for them every day. I’m not afraid to do anything in the business that is needed, and I tell them that success is a choice. It’s up to you, and persistence does positively pay,” he added.
Even though his father didn’t stick around for his family, Ochoa said the work ethic he learned in his early years is part of what did stick with him. His dad, from Columbia, South America, came from a Hispanic culture that taught young people to work hard, and Ochoa said he and his brother definitely did that in his father’s air conditioning business.
“He worked me hard,” Ochoa said with a laugh. “But my mother was there to raise me as a Christian and seeing my mother walk to her job at the grocery store, it obviously had an impression on who I became.”
His mother remarried when he was 16, giving him a choice to live alone in the family home after his dad left, or he could live with his mom and her new husband.
“I decided to live alone, so I got the job at Popeye’s and brought in a roommate,” he said.
However, as a young teen he started dealing drugs since the money was very lucrative. All of that was fine until he got busted at the age of 17 for dealing Ecstasy. It became a turning point in his life.
“I was lucky,” he said. “I got five years on probation, but it was a felony on my record that followed me for many years before I got it expunged at the age of 30.
“The one thing that arrest did was scare me straight and I left all the drug stuff behind,” he noted.
He moved to Slidell at the age of 18 and got hired at Copeland’s on Gause Boulevard, while working a second job at a body shop. He remembers a time when he contemplated his future and knew, “that I wanted to do something with my life, and honestly, that meant I wanted to figure out how to make good money.”
For Ochoa, it all started with learning all he could at Copeland’s so he could move up.
“I catch on to things fast and I was always good with numbers, and Copeland’s gave me that opportunity to learn. I made up my mind to learn everything I could in every department they let me work,” he said. “I used to tell myself that nobody can learn more than understanding how every department works, and that’s what I did.”
That also gave him a chance to learn culinary skills in the kitchen with Copeland’s Chef George Rhode IV, which led him to his first management position there as the assistant kitchen manager, even though it meant a pay cut.
“I wanted to get my foot in the door in management, so I had to do it,” he said. “But the important thing is that I kept learning new things every year. Those lessons have helped me in more ways than I can count.”
Copeland’s was about to open their new restaurant, Straya, and Ochoa was sent to be a kitchen trainer, followed by the company seeing his value and sending him all over the region to train others in their restaurant kitchens.
“I used to go to Al Copeland’s house and head the catering for his Christmas parties. I really loved him since he was such a man’s man, and being around him taught me a lot,” he said.
When Copeland died in 2008, Ochoa said he lost his passion for Copeland’s and left, spending a year-and-a-half with Ruby Tuesday. But by this time, he was already considering his first big business move—to open his own restaurant. However, it didn’t take long to see how skeptical banks were when it came to loaning money for restaurants.
Even though he began to buy flood homes after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, renovating and selling them to provide some collateral for a business loan, Ochoa said it was still one of the hardest things he ever did in getting a bank to back him.
“That’s because restaurants are one of the hardest businesses to be successful,” he said. “Nobody wants to loan money for a restaurant because they are the number one business that opens and closes.”
Additionally, he had his eyes on the restaurant nearto Copeland’s which had gone through several previous ownerships.
“The place where we eventually opened NOLA Southern Grill had already been Retro Grill, Crawfish Paradise, O’Henry’s and probably a few others,” he said. “But I thought I could make it work if I could create a brand name, and if I could get a small amount of the business that came to Copeland’s.”
Ochoa made it happen by “wiping out my savings and maxing out my credit cards” since the previous owner there was offering all the equipment and furnishings for $50,000, a relatively low number since others were not able to succeed there. He followed the purchase by spending $50,000 more to renovate the place and create the NOLA Southern Grill brand look, besides using the last bit of his cash for operating in the early days.
“I knew we needed to be something different, and I remember sitting on the patio with my chef to create a menu which featured things like charbroiled oysters, pork sliders, fried alligator and homemade kettle chips,” he said. “But it was still very hard, mainly because the reason most restaurants fail is because of cash flow. That’s hard to maintain when you have to throw away so much food—seafood, produce, wine—lots of food that you can’t use after a few days.”
In April 2012, NOLA Southern Grill opened.
“Putting the ‘Open’ sign out was one of the scariest feelings ever,” he said. “I was scared every day for two years since each day you have to just hope that people show up.”
But Ochoa’s success in his many catering and restaurant ventures, actually in business alone, was not by chance. Throughout his years at Copeland’s, he learned the importance of being involved in the community by sponsoring dozens of local events, showing up at business gatherings, and continually putting your brand name in front of the public.
“You have to do that,” he said. “When you support the community, and all these different local events, many of those people appreciate it enough to come to your restaurant. It’s a big reason we managed to get established, and then succeed.”
However, it was only the start to what would be a whirlwind of success for Ochoa over the next 10 years.
Another lesson learned from Copeland’s was the value in catering, so Ochoa worked that side of his restaurant hard from the start. Things grew so fast that he began to look for a second kitchen location where he could run the catering from, and that’s when he noticed the trials of Slidell’s longtime institution, Pinewood Country Club.
“They were heading for bankruptcy and were looking for someone to run their restaurant and bar,” he said.
Ochoa made the deal in 2015 to take over the Pinewood club operation, then immediately hustled more weddings and special events, and spent plenty of his own money to renovate the 50-year-old facility.
Then, in 2017, Ochoa partnered with Chris Smith to purchase the club and golf course for $1.15 million, which included a surprise announcement that Ochoa was going to build a brand-new wedding and events center right on the 10th tee box location. The Sadie Jane opened in 2018 after costing over $2 million to build, and since then has led to an explosion of the wedding business for Ochoa in both facilities on that property, not to mention his latest purchase of The Villa in Picayune.
“The Sadie Jane was the silver bullet to help Pinewood survive, adding another sales avenue to the club,” he explained. “Now, we can do two weddings here at one time, which we have already done many times.”
But Ochoa doesn’t talk about his own success without frequently referring to what he calls, “the best team in the business to handle special events and weddings.”
He was particularly appreciative of longtime Pinewood manager Terri Haithcock, who stayed on with him from day one, and is perhaps his most valued employee.
“Terri Haithcock is the most loyal person a businessman could ever have and I don’t know how we could have this level of success without her,” he said. “She is first class in everything she does, and I am very thankful to have her on my staff.”
He rewards his employees by taking top management and others to places like Las Vegas for a wedding convention so they can learn the top new trends.
He employs somewhere close to 100 employees at any time, not to mention his extensive real estate portfolio. But true to his word of supporting the community that supported him, Ochoa not only sees each employee as someone he hopes to mentor for their own success but is using more and more of his time to serve on non-profit boards, as well as volunteering and financially supporting dozens of area civic groups and charity organizations.
The Sadie Jane and Pinewood have already been recognized in The Knot Hall of Fame, one of the top regional wedding magazines that rank “Best of Wedding” locations. Then, other publications like the Wedding Wire have ranked his wedding venues among the most sought-after locations in the southern Mississippi and Louisiana regions.
The recognition hasn’t just been for his special events businesses, as NOLA Grill made a clean sweep of Chamber awards from the first year it opened, named Best New Business, then Best Small Business and then Best Large Business in St. Tammany.
Ochoa may be someone who works as hard as anyone around, but he is a man who knows how to step away from it and enjoy the rewards of his success. His personal life couldn’t be better with a new wife (just married Dec. 28 in New York City) whom he met during negotiations with the Pinewood Country Club board. And he makes sure to find time for traveling, particularly driving his vintage black Corvette or zipping on the water in his 35 Fountain Executioner high-speed performance boat.
But make no mistake if you think Louis Ochoa is ready to sit back and take his foot off the business peddle.
“You can never let up, and you have to earn it every day,” he said. “I always wanted to be the best at whatever I took on and I still feel that way. For success in business, you need to do lots of local networking and market yourself.”
And he added, “always be ready for the next opportunity coming up.”
He employs somewhere close to 100 employees at any time, not to mention his extensive real estate portfolio. But true to his word of supporting the community that supported him, Ochoa not only sees each employee as someone he hopes to mentor for their own success but is using more and more of his time to serve on non-profit boards, as well as volunteering and financially supporting dozens of area civic groups and charity organizations.
The Sadie Jane and Pinewood have already been recognized in The Knot Hall of Fame, one of the top regional wedding magazines that rank “Best of Wedding” locations. Then, other publications like the Wedding Wire have ranked his wedding venues among the most sought-after locations in the southern Mississippi and Louisiana regions.
The recognition hasn’t just been for his special events businesses, as NOLA Grill made a clean sweep of Chamber awards from the first year it opened, named Best New Business, then Best Small Business and then Best Large Business in St. Tammany.
Ochoa may be someone who works as hard as anyone around, but he is a man who knows how to step away from it and enjoy the rewards of his success. His personal life couldn’t be better with a new wife (just married Dec. 28 in New York City) whom he met during negotiations with the Pinewood Country Club board. And he makes sure to find time for traveling, particularly driving his vintage black Corvette or zipping on the water in his 35 Fountain Executioner high-speed performance boat.
But make no mistake if you think Louis Ochoa is ready to sit back and take his foot off the business peddle.
“You can never let up, and you have to earn it every day,” he said. “I always wanted to be the best at whatever I took on and I still feel that way. For success in business, you need to do lots of local networking and market yourself.”
And he added, “always be ready for the next opportunity coming up.”
Ochoa provides tips for success
SLIDELL – It’s easy to look at a businessman like Louis Ochoa and wonder who helped him get started so he could become so successful.
Ochoa could probably retire today at the age of 50, even though he has no intentions to. But for those who think he received a big inheritance or was given a stack of dollars from a family member to get his business ventures off the ground, think again.
Ochoa ranks among the most successful businessmen in Slidell today with an impressive diversity of business ventures and investments that keeps growing year-after-year.
He didn’t get there because of a handout. He got there because he did it the old-fashioned way—he worked for it and now tries to teach young employees the road to similar success.
“To be successful you need to find a good, stable company, and then commit yourself to learn every day. Don’t leave the first time you don’t like something the boss said, or if you got told to do something you didn’t think was your job.
“More than anything in today’s work world, employers are looking for stability, and if you show that to the boss, you will likely be treated well and get opportunities to move up,” he said.
Even when you begin to find success you can’t relax, Ochoa said, since there are always pitfalls around the corner or unexpected challenges.
“Who could have seen COVID coming? Or the devastation from some of the hurricanes that come through here?” he said. “That’s why you can never let up. Every day you have to keep working to protect what you have built. For me, I always wanted to be the best at every job I ever did, and that taught me a lot of lessons that have helped me along the way,”