It's Baton Rouge: Out To Lunch

The reasons people give for starting a business aren’t all that surprising. Financial independence, pursuing personal passions, requiring a flexible schedule, or making a positive impact on the community often top the list. What’s surprising is how many businesses start in garages. Many of America’s most successful companies, including tech giants Amazon, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft, started in humble garages.  Perhaps the most famous of which is Apple, founded by college dropout Steve Jobs in 1976. Today, Apple is a multinational corporation with annual revenue in 2024 of $391 billion. And the infamous garage on Crist Drive? It’s now listed on the city’s historic properties.   Blood Closer to home, David Slaughter stepped away from commercial real estate in 2017 to open Orion Laboratories with his wife Rachel in a 800-square-foot garage office at the back of their home. Today, Orion Laboratories is the largest independent laboratory in Louisiana, processing labs sev