Cajun eatery Papa Roux reopens doors on Eastside

Cajun restaurant Papa Roux is open again after state officials had closed the eatery Thursday because of delinquent taxes, but troubles persist.

Papa Roux manager Art Bouvier, the owner’s husband, said he accepted an offer from an unnamed person to loan him the entirety of what was owed so that the Eastside restaurant could reopen.

Loyal fans of the restaurant also started an online effort to raise the needed money.

The goal was $30,000. Before noon today, $23,954 had been raised.

The tax bill was more than $26,000.

The restaurant, 8950 E. 10th St., reopened Monday.

Funds donated through the online effort will go toward repaying the loan, the restaurant’s owners said. Any remaining funds, as well as the owners’ own contributions, will be donated to Indianapolis charity The Pourhouse Inc., which helps people coping with homelessness.

"We knew that we had made an error in the taxes," owner Colleen Kenna said. "Therefore, when the community came forward to donate that money, we knew that was not our money to keep. Because the money came from the community, we felt that we should give back to the community.”

Tuesday afternoon, however, the restaurant owners said they were surprised to hear from the Indiana Department of Revenue that because of a calculation error the agency made the restaurant still owed $3,000, payable in seven days or the eatery would be shut down once more.

Bob Dittmer, a spokesman for the Revenue Department, said last week he cannot comment on individual cases.

"When a business taxpayer gets in arrears in sales tax and withholding tax, there comes a point, often after about 90 days, that if the business has not responded to a series of notifications, that we are forced to do something a little more drastic," Dittmer said. "That is to revoke the business' registered retail merchant certificate. Without that, they can no longer conduct retail sales or they are in violation of the law."

Bouvier said the restaurant’s tax difficulties have posed a major strain on the cash flow needed each month to operate the business.

“The truth is when I come down to any decision on what gets paid and there’s not any money, the first priority will always be my employees,” Bouvier said. “I always make my payroll. If my employees don’t get paid on time, they get evicted. The state operates on a little different kind of cycle. So I make no apologies for putting my employees ahead of (tax payments). Truth is, I pay my employees even when I can’t pay myself.”

Prior to last week, the operators of the restaurant were working with state officials to catch up with payments that hadn't been made in 2012, Bouvier said. A slowdown in business in the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas period hindered him from keeping up regular payments in a plan that had been designed to cover the 2012 shortfall, he said.

Bouvier said state officials told him and his wife last week they needed to pay in full, and as of Monday afternoon, they thought they had.

Call Star reporter Bill McCleery at (317) 444-6083. Follow him on Twitter: @BillMcCleery01.