Southwest Louisiana Picks the 10 Restaurants We Miss Most

KNGT | Lake Charles, LA — A few weeks ago we started a segment on the Gator 99.5 Facebook page. We call it the "Biscuits & Banter Question of the Day". We figured it'd be a fun way to get folks talking before they headed off to work.

Well... y'all definitely showed up. We asked one simple question:

"If you could bring back one Southwest Louisiana restaurant that has closed, what would it be?"

We received hundreds of comments. Some folks named pizza places. Others picked seafood restaurants. There were even a few restaurants that were around before my time, so I had to look them up just to see where they were. But out of all the restaurants mentioned, one name came up more than any other.

Bonanza Steakhouse.

Man... that one hit me right in the feels. For me, Bonanza wasn't just another restaurant. It was my very first job back in the late 1990s when I was in high school. I still remember walking in for my first job interview. Mr. Phillip Crader was the manager at the Sulphur location. He asked if I had a red or white polo shirt and whether I minded getting wet because I'd be starting as a dishwasher. I eventually worked my way up to prep cook and later became a fry cook. I made a lot of great friends there, and believe it or not, I'm still friends with several of them today. Everybody remembers the food. The steaks. The baked potatoes. That famous salad bar. And don't even get me started on those rolls.

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We were lucky enough to have two Bonanza locations in Southwest Louisiana. One was on Prien Lake Road in Lake Charles, and the other was on Ruth Street in Sulphur. Both stayed packed, especially after church on Sundays and on Friday nights. You usually saw somebody you knew before you even made it through the front door.

That got me wondering...What ever happened to Bonanza? After doing a little digging, I found out the chain once had around 600 restaurants across the country. Today, only three original Bonanza Steakhouses are still operating in the United States. That's hard to believe when you think about how popular they once were.

The more I read through everyone's comments, the more I realized this wasn't really about the food. It was about birthday dinners with grandparents. Friday nights after football games. First dates. First jobs. Family celebrations. The people you worked beside.The memories made around those tables.Those are the things that stick with us long after the doors close.

After counting up hundreds of comments from our Gator 99.5 listeners, here are the restaurants that Southwest Louisiana misses the most.