Walk down Jefferson Street in downtown Lafayette and you’ll be greeted by an ever-expanding beige, brown and blue mural. The painting is centered on Stanley and Mike Dwyer, garbed in torque blanc and chef jacket, branches out into family members, longtime employees and new owners Brett and Craig Dwyer.
Dwyer’s Café, one of the longest-running restaurants in Lafayette, has become synonymous with downtown. Its roots stretch back to its days as Pop Stinson’s Café in 1927 on Jefferson Street when Wilbur “Pop” Stinson moved from Patterson so his children could attend what was then Southwestern Louisiana Institute.
It eventually moved to the Gordon Hotel and was renamed the Gem in 1940 and hopped around until 1965 when it was purchased by a longtime employee, Stanley Dwyer. It landed at its current location on 323 Jefferson St. in 1979.
Read more: Celebrating the people, places, history and heritage of Lafayette Parish
Before the restaurant moved to the Gordon Hotel, the Great Depression was ravaging American life and many men found themselves without stable work. Stanley Dwyer enlisted in the National Guard and was stationed at Camp Claiborne in Rapides Parish, according to his son Mike. There he participated in President Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps that brought work to millions of American men.
“He had a heart murmur so he couldn’t be drafted so he would go to one school, and they’d send him to another school,” Mike Dwyer said. “He went to every school they had on the base.”
Stanley learned to butcher, cook, raise livestock and farm. He worked the lunch line on the base and served the National Guard soldiers and men wanting food. He left the base and moved to Breaux Bridge in 1945 and lived in a train box car.
He also started working for Stinson’s at the Gem in 1945 until he eventually bought the restaurant in 1965 and renamed it to Dwyer’s Café. The name change was simply to signal new management. The menu mostly stayed the same other than adding a steam table for lunch buffets.
In 1965 as a freshman in high school, Mike started working for his father, who taught him how to run a restaurant, including cooking, bookkeeping and running registers. He was raising his son to take over the business one day. Mike studied economics in college, bought the restaurant from his father in 1975 and moved it to a space that had once housed a shoe store and barber shop combo, where it remains today.
But the business ran into some struggles as the local economy slumped during the oil crisis of the early 1980s. Many people left Lafayette to work, and the restaurant was strained for business.
“(In) the 80s, everybody left Lafayette,” Mike said. “They all went work someplace else. The oil went up, and I just built this restaurant here on the corner. People forget how it was. Us and Don’s (Seafood) were the last two restaurants downtown.”
The next decade, however, was one of resurgence in Lafayette, Mike said. The city poured money into streetscaping downtown, creating Downtown Alive, and revitalizing the area that had become known as fairly sketchy during the night.
Stanley continued working at the restaurant until he was 85, still wearing his signature white hat and coat. In 2001, Stanley died, and Mike retired his own white hat and coat out of respect for his father.
But pure perseverance is what led Dwyer’s to succeed during that era, Mike said. In 2013, his sons, Brett and Craig, bought the restaurant.
Brett started working for his father in an unofficial capacity when he was a child. He poured coffee for customers, ran orders to the back and bused the tables. He officially began working there in high school.
“At the time I thought I was really working,” Brett said. “It was probably keeping this little boy busy so he’s not messing with people really working.”
Looking back, Brett said he always knew that he and his brother would eventually operate Dwyer’s. Yet after nearly a century of operation, he realized any transition into owner didn’t change much.
“You’ve got big shoes to fill but at the same time it isn’t the pressure you feel if you were opening up a restaurant from scratch,” Brett said. “I’m still doing the same thing I’ve always done. The only thing that changed is the name on the paper.”
Since Brett and Craig took over, the menu changed a little. They’ve expanded into burger and sandwich options and expanded the breakfast menu while limiting the time frame for breakfast, all to keep up with changing cultures while maintaining their signature style.
COVID-19 shook the restaurant slightly, but they persevered again just like in the 1980s. They’ve seen struggles throughout their 100-year history and they’ve always found a way to survive.
“That was a really stressful time,” he said. “But Lafayette is great. They treated us great. We had a lot of regular customers that went out of their way to pick up to-go.”
Brett hopes that one day his children can be up on that mural, that is if they want to take over the business. But he will support their career paths regardless.
“Dedication,” Brett pauses, “Love and making relationships with the customer. It’s so many things that go into it. We’ve got a lot of blood sweat and tears from growing up in this place.”