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Toyin Alli started selling gumbo and bread pudding at a D.C. farmers market in 2010 while working full-time in Amtrak\u2019s Office of Inspector General. Sixteen years later, she\u2019s bringing those dishes to Philadelphia International Airport<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alli and her husband, Reginald Johnson, opened Lafayette\u2019s Creole Kitchen & Bar last week across from the food court in the B\/C Connector, replacing Vino Volo wine bar.<\/p>\n The 44-seat, fast casual restaurant serves Southern and Creole cooking, including gumbo, shrimp \u00e9touff\u00e9e, red beans and rice, shrimp and grits, po\u2019boys, chicken and waffles, and Alli\u2019s signature brown butter bourbon bread pudding. Breakfast options include a breakfast po\u2019boy and shrimp and waffles. There\u2019s also a full bar serving cocktails, beer, wine, and nonalcoholic drinks.<\/p>\n Lafayette\u2019s is named for Lafayette, La., where Alli\u2019s maternal family has roots. Her father\u2019s family is Nigerian.<\/p>\n Alli, who earned a master\u2019s degree in public administration from New York University, turned to cooking after asking her mother what she should sell at Eastern Market on Capitol Hill. Her mother suggested bread pudding and gumbo.<\/p>\n Customers responded. Alli eventually left Amtrak, expanded to more than 14 farmers markets and food trucks, and established Puddin\u2019<\/a> at Washington\u2019s Union Market in 2014. She later purchased two warehouses in Capitol Heights, Md., for food production.<\/p>\n The airport venture grew out of conversations during the pandemic about finding a more dependable customer base. Johnson, a retired Army Green Beret who served six tours in Afghanistan, suggested airports.<\/p>\n But entering the airport concessions business was more complicated \u2014 and considerably more expensive \u2014 than leasing a storefront.<\/p>\n