Family Works: Lake Charles Poultry and Specialty Meats

by Kerri Cooke

Lake Charles Poultry and Specialty Meats was opened in January 1969 by Leroy Bellard, and while it has changed hands twice, the business remains in the Bellard family.

Melanie Bellard Evans knew when her brother Danny retired from owning and managing the business in January, a position he had held since the ‘90s, she had to preserve the family legacy. Lake Charles Poultry and Specialty Meats is not only a testament to the hard work put in for over half a century, but it’s also a female-owned business.

“My father had been overseas and worked for Halliburton. He had six brothers and two of them opened a poultry business in Opelousas. When my father returned, they told him he needed to open a similar business in Lake Charles and they could leverage their buying power,” Melanie says. “They also opened several Mama’s Fried Chicken locations locally.”

Melanie’s husband, Sam, has been working at Lake Charles Poultry and Specialty Meats since Hurricane Laura swept through SWLA. He started out helping Danny get the business back up and running. However, he never left, learned the ins and outs of the business and became known amongst regular customers. Melanie says she wouldn’t have felt comfortable buying the business if her husband hadn’t already had plenty of knowledge regarding the workings of the place and without the help of her nephew who has been working at the poultry for several years as well.

While Lake Charles Poultry and Specialty Meats is a wholesaler which provides meat to restaurants, food trucks, nursing homes and other businesses, they also have a walk-in meat market offering a wide range of products, perfect for summer grilling. These cuts of meat are convenient for weekly meal prep.

Lake Charles Poultry and Specialty Meats buys their chickens from a company named Golden Rod in Alabama. The birds are slaughtered at a younger age, are hormone-free and receive a cold bath after the slaughtering process. Melanie says this process produces meat that is juicier and tastier than your average chicken. Golden Rod works exclusively with Lake Charles Poultry and Specialty Meats.

Popular items from the meat market include pork steaks, ox tail and turkey necks. Other proteins include frozen shrimp, catfish or basa filets, goat and rabbit. And if you’re looking for a product other retailers don’t usually sell, chances are Lake Charles Poultry and Meat Market has it. They offer such items as pig feet, chicken feet and other less sought after animal products. They can also custom cut chickens and pre-season them. Lake Charles Poultry and Specialty Meats has their own brand of all-purpose seasoning, which is lower is sodium than many other brands, a fish fry, a French fry seasoning and a Mesquite BBQ rub. They are also sold in the meat market.

Melanie says it is “heartwarming to see how supportive the community is as we are continue running the business. If we didn’t step in, the family legacy was going to die.” Lake Charles Poultry and Specialty Meats has hosted numerous customer appreciation days where they provide a specific number of plate lunches to the community free of charge in response to their support.

Not resting on past success or coasting with the current pace of the business, Melanie says she wants to expand the wholesale aspect of the business and get Golden Rod chickens in local grocery stores, such as Rouses and Market Basket. She would like to provide products for the school system and gas station eateries and wants more people to discover the on-site meat market open for regular customers. She notes the business takes EBT.

“My dad built this business up to what it is today,” Melanie says. It’s nostalgic to peel the layers of the onion back and see what the business is all about. There’s a sense of pride there. He would always say, ‘Take care of the customers and they take care of you.’ We still run the business that way today.”