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Merengue star Milly Quezada will perform Sept. 25 at this year’s Festival Latino.

Hotter than ever

Festival Latino debuted 25 years ago when Latin American culture still seemed exotic in Baton Rouge.

Today, tens of thousands of families from Mexico to Argentina have made the area their home, introducing locals to all manner of exotic foods, music and traditions.

Festival Latino, set for Sept. 25 on the grassy campus of the Catholic Deaf Center on Brightside Drive, began modestly with only three booths. Today, it attracts 3,000 visitors annually.

This year’s event features a performance by Milly Quezada, the Dominican Republic’s “queen of the Merengue.” There’s also a Latin ballet performance of Verde, election of Miss Festival Latino and a karaoke contest.

FESTIVAL LATINO

WHAT: Family-friendly celebration of food and culture

ADMISSION: $5 per person

WHEN: Sunday, Sept. 25,

10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

WHERE: Catholic Deaf Center, 2585 Brightside Drive

Learn more at festivallatinobr.com

Wanna see something really scary?

To some of the 13th Gate’s thousands of nightly thrill-seekers, the scariest part was the line to get in.

For owner Dwayne Sanburn, that just wasn’t hacking it—so to speak.

So beginning Sept. 22, victims—er, visitors—can opt for a new attraction across the street: an outdoor New Orleans-style cemetery called Necropolis 13. “There are mausoleums, 400 upright crypts—I’m telling you, if you woke up in this thing, you’d swear you were in a New Orleans cemetery,” Sanburn said.

Hiding in Necropolis 13’s shadows will be 50 actors in full costume as vampires, zombies and other un-dead. There’s even a voodoo fire show to “summon the dead” put on by a professional fire performance troupe.

All that’s on top of the 100 actors already prowling the labyrinthian 13th Gate.

With two separate entrances and lines, the wait times will be much shorter this year, Sanburn says. midnightproduction.com

Tin Roof's Tom Daigrepont.

Meet the master

With 25 years of experience brewing beer, Tom Daigrepont was confident he could be useful to the entrepreneurs bringing craft beer to the Red Stick with their startup, Tin Roof Brewing Company.

Charles Caldwell and William McGehee, owners of the young brewery off Nicholson Drive between downtown and LSU, were impressed with Daigrepont’s knowledge, plus the fact he’d started up his own tiny brewery called Bon Temps Brewing in the mid-1990s.

Ever since Daigrepont stepped in to help with the brewing, “the beer,” Caldwell says, “has been flying off the shelves.”

Actually, that’s just a figure of speech. Tin Roof beer hasn’t been on shelves—yet. The Perfect Tin Amber Ale and Voodoo Bengal Specialty Pale Ale have been on tap in Baton Rouge restaurants and bars for a year now, but this fall Tin Roof will offer them in cans.