Stephen Domingue is still ragin’
Stephen Domingue, who ran the Ragin’ Cajun restaurant in Hermosa Beach for 18 years, now operates a food truck, wheeling out to different Southern California locations daily. Photo by Alene Tchekmedyian
One spring day in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1988, Stephen Domingue climbed into his red, smoke-blowing Nissan Sentra, solely with the clothes on his back, a few bucks in his pocket and his at-the-time girlfriend, an aspiring actress, in his passenger seat.
The then-26-year-old was heading west and he’d settle wherever his car got him.
“If that car would’ve broke down in Texas, you and I wouldn’t be talking right now,” Domingue said, with a contagious laugh that revealed a row of perfectly straight, white teeth.
Four days later, he landed in Torrance, crashing with a couple of high school friends who had moved there from Lafayette a couple years before. He’d dropped them off at the Louisiana airport in tears, never expecting he’d be joining them.
For four years, Domingue paid the bills by working as a parts manager for a BMW dealership, practicing his “momma’s momma’s momma’s” Cajun recipes on the side.
One day, he gathered the courage to take a taste of his jambalaya to the Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce, which led him to obtain a booth at the annual Memorial Day Weekend Fiesta Hermosa.
Buoyed by the success at the fiesta, Domingue opened his six-table Ragin’ Cajun restaurant on Pier Avenue on April Fools Day in 1992 – “what a fool, huh?” he said, with a laugh. He knocked down walls to expand the spot twice before 2000, ultimately to fit 32 tables and seat 125 people.
Stephen Domingue, years ago, in his Ragin’ Cajun kitchen in Hermosa Beach.
“The food was so good there, you wanted to take your napkin home and eat it later,” said Rob Saemann, devoted customer, friend and longtime contractor of Domingue’s.
After a nearly two-decade restaurant career and a bitter farewell with his then-landlord, Domingue took to the streets, embracing the mobile food truck craze. He now wheels out to different Southern California locations – high schools, festivals and football games at the Coliseum to name a few – feeding about 250 people daily. Domingue even had a short stint on the Food Network Channel’s “The Great Food Truck Race,” where he competed against six other food trucks for a $50,000 prize. On Feb. 19, Domingue is hosting a Mardi Gras party at Santa Anita Park with music, entertainment and horse racing.
Humble beginnings
Domingue is the fourth of seven kids, four boys and three girls, almost all a year apart. He even shares his birthday, Oct. 16, with his sister Theresa.
Since age 11 and through college, the four Domingue boys worked for the Trappey’s factory, a company founded by their ancestors in the 1800s that produced hot sauces, red kidney beans, okra and yams, and sold them nationwide.
Growing up, Domingue’s tight-knit, extended family gathered at grandma’s house every Sunday afternoon. Domingue took to cooking and hospitality early, his family said. While his brothers, sisters and cousins were playing on the front lawn, Domingue could be found helping prepare the food. “A good game of chase, softball, football – Stephen was in the kitchen,” his brother, John Domingue, said.
Four months before Domingue drove cross-country to settle in the South Bay, he’d visited the area. He tagged along when his then-girlfriend was auditioning for “The Bold and the Beautiful” in Hollywood. “I called my momma on Sunday during the day. I said, ‘Momma, I’m not coming to eat tonight because I got a softball game,’” Domingue recalled with a sheepish grin. “I was fibbing, I was lying.”
“I can always remember my momma saying to me, ‘Stephen, you be careful out there because there’s thunder and lightning and it’s pouring down rain.’ And here I was,” Domingue said, covering his mouth with shame, “And it was beautiful weather.”
His brother recalled the same incident. “When I really knew what was going on I was like, ‘Oh god, I don’t want to be there when he breaks the news.’”
Patrons say Domingue brought his southern hospitality with him. “Our culture is all about taking care of people,” Domingue said.
Upon opening the restaurant, he’d stand outside with a pot of red beans and rice, giving tasters to passersby.
That’s how he met many of his customers, including Redondo Beach resident Ted Ward, who’s been frequenting Domingue’s eateries since the early 1990s. “I was walking to the beach and he was giving samples,” Ward recalled. He and his friends celebrated their birthdays at the restaurant for nearly two decades, and now they follow his truck around the South Bay.
Domingue had tricks to keep the customers coming. “When people would walk in my restaurant, I’d ask them their names and I’d turn around and I’d write their names down on the wall and describe what they looked like,” he recalled, with a bright laugh. “So the next time they came in, I’d remember their names. They were blown away.”
Lucky customers even had dishes named after them. During one of Domingue’s expansions, Rob Saemann was trying to break through an eight-inch-thick, concrete wall. After two days, he broke through. “Stephen walked in at that moment and said, ‘Bubba, you got the wall down.’ I’ve been ‘bubba’ ever since,” Saemann said, adding that while working there, he’d always order grilled sausage and gumbolaya. “He nicknamed it ‘The Bubba Special.’ It was never on the menu, but people would order it,” Saemann said.
TV’s crazy Cajun
Domingue learned about food truck operations on the set of Food Network Channel’s, “The Great Food Truck Race,” where he competed against six other gourmet food trucks for $50,000. The food trucks were sent to different cities each weekend to sell food – the one to make the least amount of money was sent home.
To attract customers in San Diego, the first stop for contestants, Domingue switched off between wearing a metal accordion tie and playing it with metal spoons, and a purple and yellow beaded tie.
“I’m going to become the crazy Cajun and give the competition a run for its money,” Domingue said, on the show.
He danced a little jig on a wooden board that had Cajun sayings, including “Show me your step,” painted on it. He even climbed on the back of someone’s bike with an accordion, yelling at the public to try his food.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m cocky or anything, but I was the star of the show,” Domingue said.
The night it aired, Domingue’s brother John visited the local gym in Lafayette for a workout. “As I was walking out, the first thing I said was, ‘I think I’m going to drop my last name,’” he recalled, laughing. “Stephen was a wild man, he was out of control.”
While others contestants were on their phones and computers figuring out where to do business, “Stephen got a bullhorn and was yelling, ‘Go to the Ragin’ Cajun!’” John said. Still, he continued, “I will put his food up against anybody’s.”
For Domingue, the show came at an opportune time – just when his landlord refused to extend his lease on his upper Pier Avenue restaurant space in Hermosa Beach. As he was looking for a new place to park, Domingue decided to keep his wheels turning.
On wheels, a loyal following
One recent afternoon, Domingue pulled his food truck onto the grass field of West Torrance High School, directed by a plump blonde woman in a golf cart.
“I didn’t eat lunch because of you,” the woman said, motioning with her hands to where he can park his truck on the field.
Domingue, wearing bright, sea-blue contact lenses, pulled over and prepared to serve an after-school lunch to the high school students, parents and faculty.
[scrollGallery id=318]On the menu: Domingue’s special creation, “gumbolaya,” or gumbo over jambalaya. “I’d never heard of gumbolaya before he did it,” said Louisiana-native Brian Carlin. “He made that one up.”
On the truck, Domingue also serves chicken and sausage gumbo, chicken and sausage bisque, red beans and rice with sausage, and poboys. For dessert, there’s the cheesecake with praline sauce, which patrons claim will “change your life.” Carlin said Domingue’s food is distinctly Cajun and comes from Southwest Louisiana, as opposed to Creole cuisine, which is prominent in New Orleans. “Creole gumbo has more tomato. There’s a big distinction to be made,” Carlin said.
Domingue’s truck menu is more limited than what was offered in his restaurant – patrons miss the blackened salmon, catfish, and pork chops with brown gravy – but Domingue maintains a loyal following of longtime customers, and attracts new ones daily.
Every Wednesday for lunch, Domingue can be found at the El Segundo Farmers Market in the Whole Foods parking lot. One recent afternoon, Domingue had a consistent line of about 10 people, all different ages and ethnicities, throughout the two-and-a-half hours he was there.
Peter Lucey, who grew up in Boston and maintains that Domingue has the most authentic Cajun food around, strolled up to the Ragin’ Cajun truck with two large, plastic containers inside his Trader Joe’s reusable bag. “I’m going to go fill up,” he said, with a grin.
Minutes later, two men sauntered up in their gym clothes, having just finished an afternoon workout at Equinox, and ordered red beans and rice with jambalaya.
“Do you think we earned this today?” Derek Emerson asked his workout buddy.
“We earned it,” his friend replied. “Mid-day, you can carb-up.”
Just steps away, a first-time customer sampling the red beans and rice chose to order the chicken and sausage bisque. “I want you to know this is really good,” she said, for the record, even though she ordered another dish.
“Don’t make his head any bigger,” another lady piped, with a playful grin. “Thank his momma.”
Customers constantly come up and ask when he’ll be opening his restaurant. “I’m going to be working on the truck for a while – until these landlords come back down to planet earth,” Domingue said, noting there’s exorbitant overhead costs that come with renting a restaurant space. “I’m just tired of making these landlords rich off me.”
Hermosans considered him a landmark, customers said. “The landlord made a terrible mistake letting him go,” said Robert Stenson. “He was an institution down there. He had a very loyal following. Hermosa Beach lost something by losing the restaurant.”
“We’re gumbo eaters and out of all the gumbo we’ve had, this is the best,” said John Perchulyn. His wife Joyce concurred. “The flavor, it’s very tasty, a little spicy, good quality ingredients,” he continued. The couple had driven to El Segundo from South Redondo Beach for lunch.
Barbara Joelson stumbled across the truck a month ago and now she’s addicted. “I’m a Ragin’ Cajun now,” she said. She visits the truck three times a week.
An older woman in a black sweat suit approached the truck. “He was on Food Network,” she whispered to her friend, as she whipped out her camera to snap a quick photo.
Inside the truck, friends munched on fried shrimp poboys and brainstormed how Domingue could expand his business.
“The comeback, baby,” Carlin, a local lawyer and loyal customer, said. “They should call him Phoenix because he rises from the ashes, baby.”
Mardi Gras Party at Santa Anita Park: $5, noon to 6 p.m., 285 West Huntington Drive, Arcadia.