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Access code 70005: R&O's

When R&O's first opened in 1980 -- they started with 12 tables and served pizzas, Italian salad and some Italian dishes. They are now in their third building and the menu has grown.

R&O's is more than legendary food and great service - it's a love story. Roland and Ora Mollere met when they were just kids, milking cows at the dairy Ora's family owned.

"Mom and dad were ten years old when they met. They ran off with 10 silver dollars to go get married at 16 years old," explained the couple's youngest child UJ Mollere.

Roland and Ora were married for over 68 years when Ora passed away in 2014. She was the backbone of the restaurant and the reason it came to be. She was a secretary, but for years she ran a bread delivery route in the mornings before work, saving over $4,000 dollars to start a restaurant. Roland was a commercial fisherman and a carpenter. R&O's stands for Roland and Ora's - a dream that came to fruition.

"And what I think where it comes from... when mom and dad used to have to milk those cows every morning. How tough it was to do it everyday, 7-days a week, 24-7. It gave them the desire and the will and the passion to actually keep this thing going."

It was Roland and Ora's dying wishes that their four children, Sherrill, Roland Jr., Carla and UJ, keep the restaurant going.

"We made a promise after my mother and father died that we were all going to stay together and work together and get along. We're trying. It's not easy," Roland Jr. Mollere said.

But it is easy to keep customers happy with a menu full of favorites. When R&O's first opened in 1980 -- they started with 12 tables and served pizzas, Italian salad and some Italian dishes. They are now in their third building and the menu has grown with their own twist on south Louisiana classics like houseboat gumbo, the R&O Special and their award-winning roast beef po-boy.

UJ explains what many people they meet say. "They tell us, 'Man you have R&O's? That is the best roast beef I've ever had in my life.' What else can you say?"

Ora ran the politics of the restaurant and handled the money part. Roland oversaw day to day operations.

Roland had a chair in the kitchen he used to sit in everyday and observe. That way he could eye everything coming out of the kitchen. He had one rule - if you wouldn't eat it, don't serve it!

Now, Sherrill handles the majority of the office duties and the other three siblings take shifts running the restaurant. Their roles can be interchangeable and they're not afraid to roll up their sleeves and do what needs to be done to carry on the family legacy.

"My brother and I make the dough. So we actually make the dough, cut the dough and actually roll the dough individual for each small, medium and large pizzas," says UJ.

Roland and Ora may be gone, but their memories are everywhere you look at R&O's.

"This is when dad gave momma a mink coat for Christmas one year," Carla Mollere Flick explains, pointing at pictures on the wall.

From milking cows - mink coats.. R&O's is an American success story. One that continues.

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