Michael “Floppy” Tremonte is the resident stir-fry cook inside Cayman Café, as well as a veteran cook at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

“Around this time every semester I work Jazz Fest. This will be my tenth year. I cook seafood au gratin, spinach and artichoke casserole and sweet potato pone. It’s with my family. My two aunts have booths that are right next to each other, and they’ve been doing it for 30 years,” Tremonte said.

Born in Florida, “Floppy” moved to Ponchatoula when he was a toddler. He was soon thrown into the eclectic southeast Louisiana culture, where he spent most of his time with his mother.

“My mom sold tie-dye shirts in the French Quarter so I grew up around all the vendors, which is where I learned to stir-fry, and that’s where I got my people skills,” said Tremonte.

He was uprooted from Ponchatoula when Hurricane Katrina hit and was forced to move back to Florida. Three years later, he was back in Hammond working throughout the local restaurant scene until he came upon a job at Southeastern.

“I live downtown and bike to work every day. When I lived in Florida after the hurricane, I was biking like 10 to 12 miles a day, sometimes 40 just for fun. I did construction out there after Katrina, and I was in great shape,” said Tremonte. “I got this job because my friend Dustin worked here. This is the start of my fourth year now, so I love it. It’s fun.”

Many students have come to know Tremonte by a different name.

“‘Floppy’ is a childhood nickname. I got double-bounced on a trampoline, flew off and pinched a nerve in my back when I was younger,” Tremonte said.

Tremonte was juggling two jobs when he first started working at Cayman Café. He was also working in the kitchen at Tommy’s on Thomas and then moved to Tope Là.

“It was insane. I did it for about a year and a half. I had no sleep ever. I was working about 140 hours every two weeks. At 16 hour days in the kitchen, seven days a week. It’s rough.”

Working in a school cafeteria and working in a restaurant are two different worlds according to Tremonte. The difference is the people he comes in contact with.

“That’s the only thing that kept me going over there [at Tope Là], was the people I worked with. Here, it’s the students. It’s really the students who give me faith in people,” he said. “Most of the time you see people and you go and hang out with somebody and you’re in a group. There’s a difference between that person in a group, and that person one-on-one. Here I get that one-on-one experience with people and see what they’re like.”

“I think that Michael does a great job in the cafeteria,” said Dustin DiBendetto, a friend and fellow chef in Cayman Café.

“I’ve noticed that most of the students are on a first name basis with him, which makes customers feel more comfortable. This is hard to find in a business like ours because we don’t work for tips. Some people aren’t always so friendly and helpful.”

Tremonte has considered the idea of going to culinary school but realizes that he is faced with a challenge.

“I would love to go to culinary school, but my parents raised me vegetarian. I don’t have the enzymes in my stomach to break down the protein in meat, and chefs have to taste everything they make.”

Other than cooking, Tremonte’s favorite pastime is to go fishing.

“Fishing would be my dream job, just sitting in a boat all day watching a line in the water. I just got back from a fishing trip in Grand Isle and I caught about 20 pounds of catfish.”

Tremonte lives his life by one straightforward piece of advice, “love what you do, or it’ll do you.”