HENDERSON, La. ( KLFY ) — As we approach another stormy week in Acadiana, one historic restaurant in Henderson looks back at a tornado that wreaked havoc on the business earlier this year.

Pat’s Fisherman’s Wharf in Henderson was forced to close for months, but as a part-owner Harvey Huval explains, they knew they’d be back and thriving once again.

“I was kind of in shock, to tell you the truth,” Huval said. “But I had to get out the shock real quick because we had a lot of work to do.”

Huval said the tornado lasted less than 30 seconds, but that was enough.

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“My porch area ended up in the basin, across the levee,” he said. “My hotel got destroyed. the whole roof came off.”

Pat’s closed May 13, the day the tornado hit. That’s when the work began.

“And we are some workers,” he said. “We don’t lay down. we are some fighters, and that’s what we do. We fight.”

But he always knew he’d restore the nearly 80-year-old restaurant his dad, Pat, started, to all of its former glory.

“My father built that into us: never give up,” Huval said. “We down a lot, but you got to come up. We came up. I had no doubt, and I had some good help. I had good people around me.”

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