CYPREMORT POINT — Since announcing her intentions in a Facebook post — addressed as a letter to “the community of Cypremort Point” on Oct. 18 — to reopen a beloved restaurant on the shoreline of Vermilion Bay — there has been an overwhelming response from the community, according to Susan Price of Houma.

Price said she plans to reopen the long-shuttered restaurant on the Point, as well as a shop of sundry conveniences for campers and fishermen, including fuel service. Her vision encompasses far more than a grill and a gas station.

Locals and people with camps in the area have flooded her with praise, encouragement and many helping hands, excited about what could be.

Love at First Sight

It began with Price’s first trip about a month ago to Cypremort Point.

“I’d always heard about Cypremort Point but I’d never been there,” Price said recently. “My aunt grew up there and she’d tell me stories, so I had already romanticized what it was in my head.”

Still, that didn’t prepare her for the sunset she saw when she finally made it down to the Point, where the old Bayview Restaurant once operated. She and some friends got together and set out from Houma to see the area.

“I’ll tell ya, as we were driving in, as soon as I could start seeing that Bay behind those camps — I can’t even explain it,” Price said. “I felt like a kid going on this grand vacation. I just fell in love.”

And then the sun began to set.

“I was already enchanted with the place,” she said, “but when I stood at that point and that sun started going down, there’s just something in me that clicked. I saw the beauty that place could be and that it deserves to be.” 

“As the sun started going down, I honestly felt like the presence of God was there … there was a serenity.”

“I know God doesn’t sleep, but if he did that’s the place he’d choose to wake up and to watch his amazing creation — that sunset,” she said. “I just saw it, the vision of it what it could be. It all came to me.” 

More than a meal

On her way back to Houma, Price, who specializes in real estate leasing, called her boss, John Parker of Houma, who owns the building. She explained her vision to him.

Price said she plans to start by opening a small grocery store. 

“It will accommodate all those things thing boaters and campers need,” she said. “Not a full-fledged grocery store, just little stuff — plus a deli.”

Once that is up and running, she wants to have a limited-menu restaurant and bar back at the Bayview location. 

“Something with char-grilled oysters, oysters on the half shell, boiled seafood in season. And definitely a kids menu. We want it to be a family place,” she said.

The real gem, though, is a stage she plans to build for live music, with umbrella tables and chairs and a dance floor. Price, a singer-songwriter, she said many of her musician friends are excited about coming to play.

“We’ll shut it down early, around 10 p.m.,” she said. “Something for the community to enjoy, but not bother people with camps nearby.” 

Richard Toups, a singer and percussionist and a close friend of Price’s, has been helping Price with the project. He is a retired wiring technician and sort of jack-of-all-trades. 

“We’re getting everything together now. It’s going to take a lot — electric, plumbing, basically everything,” Toups said. 

“We’re starting next week. We’ll have something open probably by the spring,” he said, referring to that first-phase grocer. 

Eventually, “in the back, facing the bay, we’re going to build us a stage, outdoors,” he said.

Price has named the project Dock of the Bay on Vermillion. Toups’s band plays classic rock and R&B from the 70s to the 90s. It’d be hard to imagine an Otis Redding cover not making the repertoire. 

Price also said that, if enough money is coming in, she wants to build a dock that wraps around the whole Point, with benches and umbrellas for residents to stroll or to sit and watch the sunset.

“Those sunsets are mind-blowing, just unbelievable,” she said. “It’s not just a business. I really want this to be a place for the community to meet and to congregate, and to bring their families, to show off this beauty.” 

Her boss was sold immediately.

“He loves that place. He has a real heart for that place,” she said.

The previous restaurant was hit hard by storms in the past and always reopened. It closed in 2010 in the wake of the BP oil spill. Price is no rookie when it comes to operating businesses in coastal Louisiana. 

“I’ve been doing business in Chauvin for 30 years and I’ve been flooded at least nine times,” Price said. “This is not anything new that I’d be facing. We just rebuild.”

A community lends its hands

Price’s post on Facebook began by asking residents of the area what they wanted in a new business there. She also asked for any old doors or galvanized tin people had to sell or donate. She wants to give the place a rustic and vintage look.

Within about an hour, Glenn Edwards said it “would be great not to have to cook every meal the entire weekend” when he’s at camp, and that he might have some tin roofing he’d set aside.

“Thanks for coming to the Point!” Edwards said.

Patrick Bienvenu suggested selling live bait.

“You’re on the water so that should work. I used to buy live bait there many moons ago,” he said. “Also, nice bathrooms.”  

“Glad to hear this and will give you my business,” Lou Groth said.

“YESSSSS,” wrote Margaret Billeaud.

All in all, the post generated more than 30 comments and responses, offering help and encouragement. And it hasn’t just been “likes” and shares. She has enlisted building help, help recruiting dumpster rentals, construction material donations and even moving help.

Price had planned to move her camper from Bayou Black to the site at Cypremort Point. She will be splitting her time between there, working out of her camper on cleanup and restoration at the old Bayview, and her home in Houma. When she went to move it, though, she realized she didn’t have the fifth-wheel hitch she needed. 

Jeff Reaux, who lives in Lydia and has a camp at Cypremort Point, heard about Price’s project through several friends from nearby camps. 

“I was on the old Facebook, where I keep up with a bunch of friends from the Point,” Reaux said, “and people were posting there might be some life coming back to the Bayview, and it was Susan doing it. So I was just checking my morning reflections and a few things on Facebook there, and saw Susan posted a picture of a camper that she said she was looking for someone to help her move it closer to the Point.”

Reaux said his son had a truck with a fifth-wheel hitch, and that his son was out of town. 

“So I commandeered his truck,” he said. “He made out lucky on that one. It was full of cypress. So I had to unload all his cypress off for him at his home in Houma, then went to Bayou Black to get the trailer and me and Susan and Richard Toups convoyed to Cypremort Point,” he said. 

Now Price and Toups and the rest of the community are ready to get to work.

“People at Cypremort Point help people at Cypremort Point,” Reaux said.  

“The outpouring of support from the community has been amazing,” Price said. “They invited us to a Halloween party, to a jambalaya cook-off. They’ve offered to help clean up,” she said. “This is our journey together. Everybody loves Cypremort Point — we’re all in this together.”