Locations
Downtown
The French Press-Downtown is a favorite neighborhood spot tucked away on Vermilion Street across from Parc Sans Souci in the heart of downtown Lafayette. The French Press is located in the historic Tribune Printing Press building, built in the 1930s, and the building retains much of its original character.
Leaving the original floors and walls intact, owners Margaret and Justin Girouard designed an intimate restaurant and bar that plays with the idea of French-style dining and the building's former use as a printing press.
Old typeface drawers hang amongst full-sized replications of Picasso and Rousseau paintings and a large cabinet of typeface shelves serves as the hostess station, next to the original exposed piping of the original sprinkler system.
The restaurant’s rustic ambiance, with its pressed tin ceiling, candlelit tables, and a sealed cement floor that still bears the footprints of the printers who once published there, lend themselves to a unique dining experience that is both comfortable and cosmopolitan
Ambassador Location
In early 2023, The French Press opened the doors of their second Lafayette location on the major thoroughfare: Ambassador Caffery. The new location is a great opportunity to expand our audience and offer a unique dining experience to the south side of town.
The sister restaurants are similar and share many of the same qualities, but the environments are fundamentally very different. We hope this will allow each restaurant to have its own personality.
We offer the same menu as our downtown location and are taking this opportunity to update both menus, adding classic dishes like shrimp and grits and bringing back some of our old favorites expanding our coffee and cocktail selection..