Downtown Lafayette restaurant re-opens after owner almost loses both parents to COVID-19
LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY)- When Pat’s Downtown re-opened this week for the first time in six months, the restaurant’s owner says that day was extra special for him and his family.
His parents didn’t think they’d step back into the restaurant again. They didn’t even think they’d make it out of the hospital in June.
“Mama stayed in the hospital for three weeks, and daddy stayed for six weeks,” Patrick Dupuis, owner of Pat’s Downtown, said. “He actually had double pneumonia, so we pretty much thought they weren’t coming back, but they’re back.”
Dupuis shut down his restaurant in March.
Months later on June 25, his dad was hospitalized with COVID-19.
The next day, Dupuis’ mom joined her husband in Lafayette General battling coronavirus.
“When they were both in the hospital and we couldn’t even get to them, that was pretty much the worse,” Dupuis said.
Although Jeannel and Dale Dupuis were right down the hall from each other, they couldn’t see each other.
Jeannel even spent her birthday in the hospital fighting for her life.
“We didn’t think they were going to come back out, but they did and we’re blessed,” he said.
Both Jeannel and Dale beat the virus and went home.
They were even able to join their son, Pat, for his restaurant’s grand re-opening this week.
“My daddy just stayed on me, like, ‘Oh, you need to do this.’ And I said, ‘Oh, he’s back,'” Dupuis said. “You need to call this. You need this person to do this. You need to make fliers, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, he is so back.’ And then for them to come here that day was just so amazing. We’re blessed.”
Both of Dupuis’s parents are back home and healthy and he says above all, they’re together.
