The days are getting shorter and so are your opportunities to get in those perfect autumn pictures, but this locally-owned business offers a way to make your fall both delicious and photogenic.
Lou Piquenique is a small business that provides two-hour luxury picnic experiences in the Louisville area. Its owner, Assia Amry, spoke with LEO about how her business operates and what goes into one of their popular packages.
Here’s how it works.
First, you choose from the two available package options: a bring-your-own-food setup for $165, or a full package with food, non-alcoholic drinks and charcuterie for $225. Each setup includes all the essentials –– a picnic table, plates, glasses, napkins and real tableware –– plus the Pinterest-board-worthy decor that Lou Piquenique’s fans swoon over on social media.
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There are four preset themes offered (Boho, Farmhouse, Botanical, Afternoon Tea), but you can also order something more customized. (Optional add-ons include roses, games, extra time, a cake, a parasol and chocolate-covered strawberries.)
Then, you fill out the inquiry form on Lou Piquenique’s website with your intended date and location. (They require all picnics to be within 20 miles of the 40245 zip code.) Once Amry confirms, you’re all set.
On the day of, you’ll get a text with a pin showing the exact location where Amry and her husband have set up the picnic. Once you arrive, they stay on standby in the area –– while being far away enough from guests to give them privacy –– in case there are any issues.
When the reservation has 20 minutes remaining, you get a text from Amry. When the picnic is over, Amry and her husband arrive to pick everything up –– you don’t have to take care of anything else.
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An outdoor business obviously has its COVID-era advantages, and Lou Piquenique’s precautions include sanitizing all of their dishes and soft textiles, the latter of which stay unused for 72 hours after their last picnic. Amry is also a certified food handler.
Still, as the temperature gets colder, the business has had to shift toward offering seasonally-appropriate options. Fire pits are currently an add-on option for outdoor picnics, and Amry is working out the logistics of offering picnickers a plastic igloo dome in the future. Until then, the business is focusing on tablescapes, indoor picnics inside guests’ homes and offices.
Many of the nearly 80 picnics that Lou Piquenique has done since the business opened in March have been for special occasions –– proposals, birthdays, dates, etc. –– but one of Amry’s most memorable ones was a surprise brunch for a new mother celebrating her anniversary with her husband.
The woman had given birth about a week prior –– “she’s this postpartum mom, she’s feeling all the feels, she’s tired, she’s gotta keep this little human alive,” Amry said. The woman’s husband had planned the picnic far in advance, and the woman was “just floored.”
“She was crying and just so touched, and she told me, ‘He never surprises me, I always figure it out.’ Girls, y’know, we never let ourselves be surprised, right?” she said. “I love that this new mom got a little time for herself and still got to be celebrated, especially when she’s probably having really long nights and lifting the world on her shoulders.”
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Amry is also a mom with a young child, and she told LEO that collaborating with other female business owners had been important to her since her business began. The vendors she works with to create her offerings are women –– namely, florist Bailey Wynn of Bloomed Roots, pastry chef Maj Salvador of Dulces Kitchen and photographer Morgan Bagby.
“It was really important to me when I started this that I teamed up with other women-owned businesses and make our presence known [and] be part of the entrepreneur fabric of the city. Louisville is so rich, and I wanted to be part of that.”
Amry hopes to have done 100 picnics by the end of the year, but space fills up quickly –– in fact, she’s already taking bookings for Valentine’s Day.