Sisters Samantha Haynes and Jennifer Attales at The Girls Joint.
The Girls Joint Certified Cajun Diner in Downsville offers homemade Louisiana comfort food from authentic family recipes
By April Bartel
The Paw Bunyon, a three-meat breakfast burrito.
There is something to be said for Southern hospitality, especially the unique strand of it woven through Louisiana’s Cajun culture. For Samantha Haynes and Jennifer Attales, opening a restaurant in Downsville was less about starting something new than recreating a familiar experience in a new place—interlacing touchpoints like kinship, community and a little lagniappe—”a little something extra.”
The sisters, who were born and raised in Southwest Louisiana, opened The Girls Joint Certified Cajun Diner in August 2024. Blink and you might drive by it, ensconced in the 100-year-plus General Store building on Downsville Pike. They have retained its throw-back character, enhanced with a made-from-scratch kitchen serving the homestyle food they grew up with.
“We basically started (this business) because it was hard to find good home cooked food,” Haynes says. “Everything is processed.” They dreamed of meals that tasted like home, served with informal grace. Haynes says they were also frustrated by declining personal service.
“I’ve worked in customer service, hospitality and restaurants for about 20 years,” she says. “And I’ve watched customer service die.”
So, the sisters turned to family recipes and food traditions, those perfected by their MawMaw, Granny Faye, and their dad.
Cajun culture traces its origin to Acadian (French/Canadian) exiles who settled in southern Louisiana, where their cooking developed through contact with Native American, African, European and other influences. Gumbo, one of the cuisine’s best-known dishes, is as fluid as its finished product; historians describe it as a dish shaped by geography, available ingredients and individual family traditions. In other words, the idea that everyone’s gumbo might be a little different is part of the fun.
At The Girls Joint, the sisters’ version is a chicken-and-sausage gumbo that simmers for hours. The meat tenderizes as the flavorful broth develops, with their homemade smoked sausage contributing its own seasoning and depth. That 100 percent pork sausage is one of the restaurant’s defining flavors.
Rather than purchase commercial sausage, Haynes and Attales make their own using a family recipe. Growing up, their father and other relatives would gather several times a year to make hundreds of pounds to share. The process is still hands-on. The sisters begin with pork butt, then cut, season, grind and stuff the meat into casings before it’s finished in a smoker behind the restaurant.
“It’s made here in our kitchen with love,” Haynes says. On sausage-making days, the heady aroma is hard to miss. The finished product imbues everything from breakfast sandwiches and burritos to subs and red beans and rice with a savory je ne sais quoi.
The Couyon French toast sandwich.
“You can add it to any dish, and it gives lots and lots of flavor,” Haynes insists.
Beyond Cajun staples, breakfast is served all day, and the sisters make their own sub rolls daily. There are made-to-order omelets, French toast, platters and stacked sandwiches dubbed a couyon (foolish person) because, as Haynes cheekily explains, “You’d have to be crazy not to eat this.”
Some items were inspired by customers. The Big Back Breakfast Burrito, for example, grew from a self-described “big back’s” increasingly elaborate breakfast order. After coming in four days in a row and continuing to add ingredients, the sisters put it on the menu. It is two 10-inch tortillas stuffed with eggs, smoked sausage, cheese, onions, green peppers and a hashbrown.
Their rice stuffing, another family dish, combines ground beef and pork with bell peppers, celery and onion, slowly cooked in beef au jus before rice is added. Unlike “dirty rice,” Haynes explains, their rice stuffing contains no organ meat.
The smash burger.
On the menu is southern-style potato salad spiked with a dash of mustard, crisp-edged smash burgers made with fresh ground beef from a local butcher and rotating daily specials that can range from silky chicken and dumplings to fried catfish, catfish po’boys or crawfish étouffée. The restaurant posts specials and schedule changes on its social media pages.
Dessert brings another generation into the kitchen. Haynes’ daughter, Faith, comes in to bake, specializing in poke cakes made with a homemade cream sauce. She makes cupcakes, cookies and more, including a campfire s’mores cookies guests crave.
The Girls Joint is still a general store, too. The business sells some snacks and household items, ice, firewood, beer, wine and fishing supplies, and they fill propane tanks. The location’s proximity to the C&O Canal’s Dam No. 4 brings some visitors through, but it has always been a community joint.
“We have an amazing community,” Attales says. “The local people who live within a few miles of the store, they are the ones who created our foundation.” As its reputation grows, the restaurant is becoming a destination in its own right.
The sisters have even discovered that a few customers share their Louisiana roots, including one person who grew up in the same Louisiana town they did. Another’s mother worked for their grandmother.
While The Girls Joint Certified Cajun Diner channels childhood memories and inherited recipes, the sisters are always ready with a warm welcome and a hearty bowl of slowly simmered gumbo.
The Girls Joint
8638 Downsville Pike, Williamsport
(301) 223-6401 or visit their Facebook page
Hours: Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Other hours vary but generally Wednesday and Thursday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. On the first Sunday of each month, the restaurant is closed so the staff can spend time with their families.