Dudley's Cajun Cafe

I moved to Longview, Texas in 1989 to be the sales manager for John Deere Insurance Company.

I quickly made new friends as East Texas people are very friendly. I always loved to cook and invite friends over. Our new friends enjoyed my food.

I decided that I would work during the week for John Deere and sell boiled crawfish on the weekends since no one else was boiling them at the time. I went back to Louisiana picked up my crawfish cooking trailer and started boiling crawfish and selling crawfish at the end of my driveway north of the loop on Judson Road. People would ask "Can you make me some gumbo for the weekend?" The next thing I knew, people were knocking on my door ordering different cajun dishes. Donald Knights stopped and bought some crawfish from me. He had a gas station just south of I 20 by the exit to Texas Eastman Chemical Company. He sold gas, beer, and cigarettes to a lot of the employees at Eastman when the work day was over. He made me an offer. I would set up my boiling trailor in his parking lot and sell crawfish,gumbo,meat pies, crawfish pies, and jambalaya. He would sell gas, beer, and cigarettes. It worked well for both of us. Now I had worked myself into a full time job. I decided to resign from John Deere and open up a real restaurant. I found the old ALPHIES FISH AND CHIPS store that had been vacant for two years and leased it. A year later, I bought it. I opened in June of 1992. Every year since opening, we have been voted the best cajun and seafood restaurant in EAST TEXAS by an annual readers poll in the Longview newspaper.

This is due to our loyal customers and word of mouth about our quality of food and friendly service.

I want to say thanks to our customers for making DUDLEY's successful!

The rest is history!

Thanks,

Dudley Lang AKA THE TALL BALD GUY