If you’re road tripping along I-10 in south Louisiana, you might find a little culinary treasure when you take Exit 115 and head north to Cecelia. It’s a fun rural ride to a cute town on the Bayou Teche and a c-store called T’ Cochon, which means “little pig” in Cajun French. 

“At the time I built the store, there were no convenience stores in Cecelia. The hardware store had shut down and you had to drive to Breaux Bridge to get hardware,” said Dayne Green, owner of T’ Cochon. Because of that, the c-store is also a full hardware store. 

Green owned Cecilia’s Piggly Wiggly grocery store, so he felt it made sense to build T’ Cochon next door. “I had 1,000 square feet of hardware in the grocery store. We increased the inventory when we moved it to T’ Cochon,” he explained. 

T’ Cochon has almost anything customers might need in the way of hardware. “We have all the PVC you need, collars, connectors. We have shovels, pond dyes, tools, hand tools, cordless tools, frog lights,” he said. “We have every nut and bolt you can imagine, including Grade A bolts. This is a stronger bolt for bolting plows. I have cane farmers who have charge accounts at my store.”

“We don’t have lumber. You can’t build a house, but if you have a broken waterline at six in the morning, we can get you out of that jam.” 

Cajun Creativity

Of course, the food is the main event. Cracklins are a c-store staple in Cajun Country, and it’s no surprise that they are the most popular menu item at T’ Cochon. They are made with hog fat that’s cut into small pieces and deep fried in hog lard. 

“I cook 420 pounds a week,” Green said. “They come out of the pot like popcorn.”

The profits don’t stop there. A byproduct of the process is hog lard, and customers want it. 

“We can’t keep up with the hog lard. We cannot make enough to put on the shelf. We sell them in gallon jars for $40. In one batch of cracklins, we get four gallons of hog lard and 21 or 22 pounds of cracklins. It takes about two and half hours. It’s clear like vegetable oil.”

It’s not all pork here. The chicken burgers get a lot of attention from local folks. 

“We smoke our chicken burgers at the Pig [Piggly Wiggly] and bring it over to the store. We make them with course chicken thigh meat,” he explained.

Like a lot of Cajun cuisine, there’s a backstory to making these patties that involves a bit of Cajun ingenuity. Green made his own Cajun patty makers, inspired by a similar idea at Babineaux’s slaughter house. He took a 20-foot piece of pipe and cut it down into multiple 18-inch pieces. Then, he buffed the inside and outside of the pipe smooth. To make the patties, T’ Cochon staff seal one end of the 18-inch pipe with plastic wrap. Then, the seasoned ground chicken meat is packed tightly into the pipe and put in the freezer. The next morning, employees run some water on the outside of the pipe so that the meat will come out. Individual patties are cut with a saw. 

In addition to the chicken patties, the smoked pulled pork at T’ Cochon is a source of pride. T’ Cochon makes its own barbecue sauce. Green describes it as “somewhere between Jack Miller’s and Sweet Baby Ray’s. I got the handwritten recipe from the guy who originated it. It called for ‘two bloops’ of Worcestershire sauce,” Green said. 

The store also sells Hunt Brothers Pizza, which Green said is especially popular during the school year. “Kids come in and get pizza before school. Sometimes the school orders 30 or 40 pizzas. I do a lot of donations to the school. I sometimes loan the school a pizza oven if they have a special event,” Green said. “During Lent we do a shrimp pizza. People still want them after Easter.”

Always Adapting

T’ Cochon is always there for the 3,000 residents in the area. It’s a big store for a small, rural town. That means always evolving the store to be a better fit for customers.  

Green is always tweaking the store. “Behind the store, I had to put a retention pond. I want to build a deck and canopy so people can sit down and eat lunch. It’s big, it’ll be 30 x 70 feet.” 

This is also hurricane country. Green is always prepared for a storm during hurricane season. “I have a warehouse where I can store nine 18-wheelers full of water. Summer is here and we might have a hurricane. I buy truckloads of water softener (for water wells), paper towels and lots of bottled water.”

When there is a natural disaster, it’s all hands on deck. “When we have a hurricane or freeze, it’s busy. It’s 20-hour days when we have storms. My wife, kids and employees come and help out. I want to help the people in my community.”