A New Orleans-based restaurant featuring Mexican-inspired cuisine is expanding into the Capital Region, opening in a familiar spot on Perkins Road.
Vals, a restaurant and bar, will move into the former Rock Paper Taco building near Perkins Road Community Park.
Rock Paper Taco, which began as a food truck concept, closed its Perkins Road restaurant last February.
Vals co-owner Matthew Kohnke tells Daily Report that joining the Baton Rouge business community has been a goal for some time. He mentioned hurdles that must be crossed before the restaurant opens, including plans and a building permit, but he could not disclose a timeline for when that might happen.
“The building’s location on Perkins stood out and we believe our success isn’t necessarily predicated on what other restaurants have done in that building prior to us, because it will be transformed,” Kohnke says.
There were plans to transform the location into a funeral home last year when property owner and local broker Donnie Jarreau with Jarreau Real Estate applied to have the space rezoned from restaurant use to light commercial.
Jarreau says that the deal with a funeral home did not close, forcing a pivot toward another tenant. Matthew Shirley of Saurage Rotenberg helped broker the deal for Vals.
Jarreau, Hank Saurage IV and Edward Rotenberg purchased the building for $1.4 million in 2016.
Kohnke and the rest of the team behind the James Beard award-winning CureCo hospitality services company own and operate Vals. The New Orleans location on Freret Street near Valence Street has been open for four years.
The group also owns Cure and Cane & Table in New Orleans and Dauphine’s in Washington, D.C.
