BATON ROUGE — A once-popular seafood restaurant shuttered since 2019 is being torn down to make room for a new boulevard that will stretch from Essen Lane to Bluebonnet.

Crews this week began dismantling the Ralph & Kacoo's restaurant across Bluebonnet Boulevard from the Mall of Louisiana. The city-parish is extending Constantin Boulevard on the north end of the city's Health District.

The restaurant closed five years for a remodeling that never occurred.

A location on Airline Highway opened in 1974 and closed in 2001, according to The Advocate. The Bluebonnet location opened in 1986.