225

About 225

225 is the free monthly lifestyle magazine of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, named for the region's 225 telephone area code. Launched in November 2005, it covers the people, places, food, events, arts, and culture that define the Capital Region. Published by Louisiana Business Inc., it combines glossy city-magazine production values with a free-distribution model that has made it one of the most widely read local publications in Baton Rouge.

History and founding

225 was introduced in November 2005 by publisher Julio Melara and co-founder Rolfe McCollister. The magazine's name comes directly from Baton Rouge's area code, a branding choice meant to signal that the publication belonged to the whole region rather than just the city proper. Its founding mantra was to help residents “discover, experience and celebrate” the city.

The timing of the launch was dramatic. The magazine debuted just months after Hurricane Katrina displaced tens of thousands of New Orleans-area residents, many of whom relocated to Baton Rouge. As the magazine's founding editor Tom Guarisco recalled, the first issue reached “a sea of bewildered, information-hungry guests,” and the magazine's earliest service to the community was effectively as a visitor's guide for newcomers who knew little about the city. Early editions documented Baton Rouge's burgeoning arts and culinary scenes while also chronicling how the influx of displaced residents was reshaping the city's culture, neighborhoods, and economy.

In his first publisher's column, Melara wrote that the magazine “will be fun, but it won’t be fluff,” and that its mission was to become “the indispensable guide to living in the Capital Region” and “a provocative, yet familiar, friend.” The magazine celebrated its 15th anniversary with a commemorative November 2020 issue and its 20th anniversary in 2025, when it published a timeline of its defining moments.

Founders and ownership

225 is published by Louisiana Business Inc. (LBI), the Baton Rouge multimedia publishing company established in 1982. The company also produces the Baton Rouge Business Report, the fashion and lifestyle magazine inRegister, the 10/12 Industry Report, and custom marketing through its Studio E division, with 225batonrouge.com joined online by the sister sites BusinessReport.com and inRegister.com.

The magazine's custom publishing division produces specialty magazines for organizations including the United Way and Louisiana higher education institutions. With 11 to 50 employees at LBI's Baton Rouge headquarters, 225 operates as part of a national award-winning regional publishing house with a staff of roughly 73 people across its titles.

Mission and editorial philosophy

From its launch, 225 positioned itself as a champion of the city's potential rather than a passive observer. Jeffrey Roedel, who served as staff writer, assistant editor, editor, and contributing writer over two decades, described the magazine's founding ambition as reflecting the city while also encouraging its people: building pride in place and “inspiring the promise of a place” by sharing compelling stories of people working to make the area code better.

That civic posture has shaped the magazine's journalism. Typical issues mix restaurant reviews and trend coverage with profiles of local athletes, interviews with bands and artists, visually driven photo essays and style shoots, and in-depth coverage of residents making the city better. The magazine has made food one of its defining beats, publishing multiple food-themed cover stories per year, and has given sustained attention to the creative community — young entrepreneurs, musicians, students, community activists, and artists — who, as founding editor Guarisco put it, “brought our pages to life.”

Publishing frequency and format

225 is a monthly magazine, with new issues released 12 times per year, supplemented by annual publications including Tiger Pride, published each August for the LSU football season, and Eats & Entertaining, released each fall. The magazine is a free publication, available to readers throughout the 225 region at newsstands and distribution points rather than through paid subscriptions.

The free-distribution model has been central to the magazine's reach since the beginning; Guarisco recalled a displaced New Orleanian thumbing through an early copy and asking, “This is free?” The glossy monthly is designed for broad pickup, and the publisher has described each issue as a “time capsule, a chronicle of an ever-changing city” that freezes in time the hopes and dreams of the people interviewed in it.

Digital presence

The magazine's online presence began shortly after launch, with 225batonrouge.com and a newsletter called 225 Select debuting in the spring of 2006. The website carries daily local content, digital editions of the magazine, and the online ballot for the magazine's readers' choice awards.

Food coverage anchors the digital strategy. The 225 Dine e-newsletter, launched as a weekly in 2009, is now published twice weekly on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, featuring event roundups, foodie guides, “First Look” previews of new restaurants, “Fast Break” lunch-spot reviews, and Q&As with players in the local food scene. The magazine also launched 225 Best Eats, a deals program with partner restaurants, in 2010, and “First Look” guided tours of new restaurants in 2015.

Best of 225 Awards

The magazine's readers' choice franchise, the Best of 225 Awards, began in 2006, when an independent research firm conducted the survey by email. In February 2016 the magazine relocated the ballot to 225batonrouge.com, opening voting to all Capital Region residents and ushering in a surge of campaigning by local businesses.

The annual awards have become one of the magazine's most engaged-with properties, with businesses competing for recognition across dining, shopping, services, and entertainment categories. The results are published in the magazine and online, and the franchise functions as both a reader-service tool and a revenue driver through related advertising and events.

Editorial leadership

225 has had a small number of editors across its history, giving it unusual editorial continuity. Tom Guarisco served as editor from the 2005 launch through 2011, steering the magazine through its formative years and the post-Katrina era. Jeffrey Roedel, who joined as a staff writer and assistant editor in 2005, served as editor from 2011 to 2014 and has continued as a contributing writer.

Jennifer Tormo Alvarez led the magazine as editor for nearly 11 years, guiding it through two print and digital redesigns, three anniversary years, a major flood, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Her tenure covered the magazine's 15th and 20th anniversary milestones and a period of significant growth in the title's food and digital coverage.

Food and dining coverage

Dining is arguably the magazine's signature beat. The 2009 launch of the 225 Dine newsletter was described by the magazine as its “first big bet on food,” made at a moment when a new foodie generation was being fed by publications like Eater and shows like Top Chef. Today the magazine publishes multiple food-themed cover stories each year, and its dining content spans restaurant openings and closings, chef profiles, food trends such as subscription boxes, and the twice-weekly newsletter's reviews and guides.

The 2010 launch of 225 Best Eats, a deals program with partner restaurants, and the 2015 debut of “First Look” restaurant tours extended the food brand into events and commerce, making dining one of the magazine's most commercially productive editorial pillars.

Audience

225's audience is the Baton Rouge Capital Region: longtime residents, newcomers, LSU students and alumni, and the young professionals and families who make up the city's growth. The free model means its readers skew toward engaged, socially active consumers — diners, shoppers, and event-goers — rather than a narrow subscriber demographic.

The magazine's content reflects that breadth. A single issue can move from a review of a new restaurant to coverage of food trends, profiles of local athletes, interviews with musicians and artists, photo essays, style shoots, and in-depth features on civic leaders. The mix is designed to serve readers' whole lives in the city rather than a single interest vertical.

Community role and impact

225's editors describe the magazine as more than a bystander in Baton Rouge's civic life. The title has used its pages to advocate for local culture and to document the city's evolution from a post-Katrina boomtown through economic cycles, natural disasters, and cultural growth. Its anniversary issues have framed the magazine itself as a historical record of Baton Rouge's 21st-century transformation.

Two decades after its launch, the magazine's founding promise — to become the indispensable guide to living in the Capital Region — remains its operating thesis. Its editors credit the publication's success to the community it covers: “Baton Rouge wouldn’t be where it is today without its most important ingredient: all of you.”