A lot of business success stories contain familiar scenarios. They include a previous spectacular failure; everybody telling an entrepreneur they’re crazy; and an entrepreneur explaining that what might look like an overnight success was anything but.

And then there are entrepreneurs like Peter’s lunch guests on this edition of Out to Lunch who both had ideas for very different businesses, went ahead and opened their doors without any drama, and were instantly successful.

Troy Bergeron spent 30 years in the music transportation business, driving tour buses for rock musicians like the late Ozzy Osbourne and transporting equipment across the country. When he quit all that and came back home to New Orleans, he was wondering what he was going to do with himself when he overheard a woman complaining there was no doggie transportation option here.

And that’s when Doggie Bus was born.

Troy Bergeron, Founder of Doggie Bus, credits his success in part to his app developer, Mario DeLuca (left), who took Troy’s idea of “Uber for dogs” and developed an app that, in Troy’s telling, “is so simple a dog could use it”

Doggie Bus is Uber for dogs.You book your dog’s ride on the Doggie Bus app; Troy shows up in his specially converted passenger van; on the app you track where your dog is, when he gets where he’s going, and when he’s on the way home.

Troy launched Doggie Bus in New Orleans in January 2024 and he’s already franchising the business to other cities.

Samantha Weiss had never lived in New Orleans. In New York City she’d put her MBA and job in financial services on hold and started pursuing a career in food. Then the Covid pandemic derailed those plans. Samantha and her friend Kelly Jacques came up with an idea – open a bakery, in New Orleans.

30-seconds of online research will tell you, New Orleans already has 40 bakeries – twice as many per capita as your average city in the US. Nonetheless, Samantha and Kelly moved to New Orleans and in 2022 took over a space that used to be Santa Fe restaurant in the Marigny, and they opened Ayu Bakehouse.

Samantha Weiss, Co_Owner of Ayu Bakehouse, credits the bakery’s meteoric success to good luck. Their legions of loyal pastry fans from near and far also attest to the possibilty that maybe making delicious sweets and running a business that retains happy and dedicated employees might play a part too

If you live in New Orleans, you may know the rest of the story. Ayu Bakehouse was an instant success. Since opening they’ve been featured in numerous national publications – including Vogue, The New York Post, USA Today, and Bon Appetit – which named Ayu one of the most exciting bakeries in the country – and you’ve probably either tried or heard about their King Cake which has been voted Best in New Orleans in the Times Picayune readers’ poll.

You’d have to be living under a rock these days not to be impacted by a seemingly endless onslaught of stressful developments – from international conflicts to national politics to local scandals, and even the daily war between your car and potholes. But, no matter what else is going on around us, there are at least two things that are universally bright spots in all of our lives. Puppies. And pastries.

Besides running successful businesses, Troy and Samantha are making the world a brighter and better place for humans, dogs, and Kevin the cat.

Peter Ricchiuti, Samantha Weiss, Mario DeLuca, Troy Bergeron, Out to Lunch at The Columns Hotel on St Charles Avenue in Uptown New Orleans

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. Photos by Jill Lafleur.