On Maurice Avenue, the New Food Stops Have Been Here All Along

Where does a Maurice Thanksgiving come from? You can get a turducken, a pan of coconut sweet potatoes and a full cart of groceries along Maurice Avenue and US-167, and none of the three businesses selling them is new to town.

In recent years, two openings changed this road the most. Both came from businesses with history here. One is a family restaurant that came back to the lot where its owner's father built a restaurant. The other is a local grocer that left a 5,000-square-foot store for one six times that size. Between them sits the butcher counter where, by its own account, the turducken was born in 1984. With Thanksgiving on November 26, here is how the three stops fit together.

The Counter That Started It in 1984

Hebert's Specialty Meats, at 8212 US-167, has specialized in Cajun foods since 1984, according to Lafayette Travel. The shop calls itself home of the original deboned stuffed chicken and of the turducken.

Here is the origin story as the family tells it. In 1984, a farmer brought a turkey, a chicken and a duck to brothers Junior and Sammy Hebert at their Maurice shop and asked them to combine the three birds. That account comes from a December 2025 report in the Shreveport Times. The same report notes a rival claim. Chef Paul Prudhomme also said he invented the dish, trademarked the name in 1986 and served it at K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans. The dish went national after John Madden tried one at a Saints game in 1996 and made it a regular feature of his Thanksgiving Day broadcasts.

The brothers are both retired now. Sammy's son, Quinn Hebert, told the Shreveport Times there's "no way to conclusively prove it, but we never heard about it anywhere else before it was done here."

The shop still ships the dish nationwide from Maurice and from its Broussard location. Quinn Hebert told the same paper they ship thousands, and Thanksgiving and Christmas bring the most orders.

"We send them all over the United States. I think people love the uniqueness of it. There really isn't anything quite like it."

That national demand affects how a local customer should plan. When the whole country orders on the same calendar, the cutoffs come early. On its shipping page, Hebert's says regular orders go out Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and some Thursdays. It asks customers to call 337-385-1503 to confirm a ship date. The Thanksgiving cutoffs posted there are from past seasons, so call before you plan around a date. Shipped orders travel frozen and vacuum-sealed, packed with dry ice and gel packs. For questions at the original Maurice shop, the location page lists 337-893-5062.

What the holiday bundles look like

Hebert's online store lists three bundled holiday meals. The listings carry no season label, and all three showed as out of stock recently, so treat the prices as a guide and confirm before ordering.

Compare the top and bottom rows. For $141 more than the Classic, the Ultimate adds the full turducken, a ham, two more sides and dessert, and it feeds up to ten more people. For a smaller table there's the deboned stuffed chicken, the item the shop names alongside the turducken as an original. The dressing options include crawfish, rice, boudin, pork, shrimp and cornbread.

Next Door, a Return to the Soop's Lot

The building at 8218 Maurice Avenue, right beside Hebert's, has a longer history than its last sign suggests. Before the current building went up, the lot held Soop's Restaurant, a longtime local spot. Developing Lafayette reported that Soop's was built by Rachael Hebert's father and run by several family members over the years. Rachael Hebert worked at Soop's herself before opening Rachael's Café on Republic Avenue in Lafayette in 2012, according to The Advocate.

When Classic Cup Café closed in 2026, Rachael's took the space. The restaurant's Facebook announcement, as quoted by The Advocate, said the café would return to "the city where it all started." It's the business's first expansion in the 14 years since it opened in Lafayette. Ownership told Developing Lafayette that Maurice has long supported the restaurant and that many of its existing customers already live there.

The Maurice location serves the same menu as Lafayette, including seafood gumbo, chicken fried steak, shrimp stew, grilled chicken plates and the coconut sweet potatoes the restaurant is known for. The Maurice building also has a few things the Republic Avenue original lacks: a drive-thru carried over from the previous tenant, a full-service bar and a larger kitchen.

The family also runs Rachael's Seafood, a wholesale business that sells frozen products through local grocery stores and meat markets.

The café's website lists Maurice hours as lunch Monday through Saturday and supper Tuesday through Saturday, with supper open until 9 on Fridays and Saturdays. The number is 337-283-2520. Online ordering for Maurice is listed as coming soon, so phone orders are the way to go for now.

Right before a holiday, being next door matters. On the Monday or Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, one parking lot puts a turducken pickup and a plate lunch side by side.

Down the Road, a Grocer Six Times Bigger

The third stop is the newest building on the strip, and it also comes from a business that was already in town. Nunu's Country Market opened its new Maurice store near US-167 just south of the Milton Road intersection, with a grand opening celebration on April 11. The Advocate called it the first full-service grocery store in Maurice. Nunu's store listing gives the address as 9512 Maurice Avenue.

According to The Advocate, the new store is 30,000 square feet. It replaced Nunu's own 5,000-square-foot store at 309 E. Lafayette St. and was expected to add 75 employees. The project was first announced in 2018. President and co-owner Blaine Broussard announced the grand opening. The store opened before every shelf was full, and its own post said, "We still have a tiny bit of shorted stock here and there, but we can't wait any longer." Nunu's also runs stores in Youngsville, Scott and Milton.

Putting the Week Together

Taken together, the strip covers a full holiday week. Here's one way to order the calls, working back from November 26:

1. Hebert's first. It ships nationwide on a schedule that peaks with the holidays, so call 337-385-1503 early to confirm ship dates. For counter questions at the Maurice shop, call 337-893-5062.
2. Nunu's for everything else. The 9512 Maurice Avenue store handles the rest of the grocery list as a full-service store.
3. Rachael's for the days around the meal. A plate lunch at 8218 Maurice Avenue covers the busy cooking days. For sides, ask about the coconut sweet potatoes when you call 337-283-2520.

Each of the three stops grew out of Maurice itself. Hebert's traces its turducken to the Maurice shop in 1984. Next door, the Rachael's dining room sits on the lot where Soop's once stood. Nunu's grew from a 5,000-square-foot store on East Lafayette Street into the town's first full-service grocer, and it stayed in town to do it.

At Lana Soileau & Associates, we pay attention to the businesses that put down roots on roads like Maurice Avenue, because that history is part of what a home in Acadiana comes with. If you have questions about Maurice or the communities around it, we're glad to talk them through with you. Contact Us.