LOTS OF SOUL. Cajun Red's (2121 Eddy Lane, Eau Claire), a new little restaurant on the north side of town has become a fast casual restaurant which offers close to 50 items including chicken, catfish, shrimp, red beans and rice, hush puppies, beignets, and more. Cajun Red's co-owners, Misty Kabus and Manny Small, have officially made their dreams of opening a restaurant a reality.

When my friend Laure Seymour Reali messaged me to check out Cajun Red's (2121 Eddy Lane, Eau Claire), a new little restaurant on the north side of town kitty-corner from Hope Lutheran Church, I followed her lead. She'd had dinner there in January, writing "Our food was wonderful. The owners were doing all the work – a very nice couple."

Billed as Southern food with a Cajun influence, the fast casual restaurant offers close to 50 items with "little spice, a lot of soul": chicken, catfish, shrimp; along with grits, collard greens, red beans and rice, hush puppies, corn bread, and more; desserts like beignets, peach streusel cheesecake — a signature piece – and Mississippi mud cake, not to mention mini pecan pie.

Cajun Red's opened on Sept. 24, 2025. As with most new endeavors, the restaurant had its growing pains, with many resolved during its first six months of operations.

Its out-the-door prices range from $10 to $20, more for family meal deals. Veterans, seniors 65-plus, and all school staff get an automatic 15% off. With its close proximity to North High School, Cajun Red’s has a $5 chicken sandwich special for students only from Tuesdays through Fridays.

Misty Kabus and Manny Small are business partners and the hard-working co-owners behind the restaurant. The duo met after a mutual friend – who knew of Misty's and Manny's individual dreams of opening their own restaurant one day – introduced them in 2017. They reconnected in 2023 to make that dream a reality.

Together, Kabus and Small have over 50 years of food service experience across a long list of familiar restaurants: the former Heckle's, The Brown Bag (AKA Barstow Court Café), TGI Friday's, Green Mill, Northwoods Brew Pub and the Ale House, to name a few.

Cajun Red's was created with a nod to the duos' southern, Cajun and Creole roots. Misty, a North High School grad, and her brother, Robert – now the manager and a cook at Cajun Red's – were born in Texas to U.S. Army parents stationed in both Louisiana and their home state.

Misty's mom, who always cooked from scratch, taught both to cook at an early age.

"Everything here is made from scratch," Misty said. "Manny and I worked as a team to tweak the recipes we made at home to make them work for a restaurant."

Manny, an Eau Claire transplant from Los Angeles, has an ingrained love for the kind of food Cajun Red's serves. Born to Caribbean and southern parents, Manny says the flavors are "in his blood." 
"I’ve been cooking since I could see over the stove," he said.

Misty said Cajun Red's works with a small staff: She and Manny are hands-on in every way; Robert is the restaurant manager and a cook; Quarmaine Johnson is the head cook and his step-daughter, high schooler Jayanna Sanders, is an expo, packaging meals for take-out and serving to in-house diners; high schooler Madeline Zeug – "(she) has been with us since the start," Misty said – is an expo and cashier.

The restaurant’s in-house decor is purposefully minimal – they have a budget they are sticking to, after all. Plus, half of its business is take-out – primarily from DoorDash and Uber Eats – with one regular take-out customer ordering between six and 10 catfish fillets a week, if not twice a week, Manny said.

I got there twice before Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday) on Tuesday, Feb. 17, and boy, am I glad I did.

My first order was take-out: a hot homemade chicken pot pie, which hit the spot after a bitterly cold winter’s day, along with beignets – those popular pillowy, petite square donuts dusted with powdered sugar (a treat first introduced to Louisiana by French colonists and Acadians in the 18th century). Being a dessert-first kind of gal, I snacked on these warm and tasty delights on the drive home.

My second visit was in-house, where I ordered the Cajun fettuccine with Andouille sausage – plus every available dessert to take home. (Again, I am a dessert gal.) The pasta dish's portion was huge; I ate it for three more days in a row; delicious every time.

The desserts included a peach streusel cheesecake topped with Southern comfort peach sauce, Mississippi mud cake, a delish mashmallowy – chocolatey topped – brownie, and a new item soon to debut on the menu: a bourbon pecan tart with candied pecans.

I'd give each a 10-star rating, all the way.

Cajun Red's is located at 2121 Eddy Lane, Eau Claire • Cajun Red's is currently open from 11am-8pm, Tuesday-Thursday; 11am-9pm on Friday; Noon-9pm on Saturday; Noon-8pm on Sunday • Keep up with the restaurant on Facebook