Lola has a garden this time.

Before you even walk into the grand new Lola’s Louisiana-style restaurant just off Summerlin Parkway, you’re greeted by sprouting eggplant, beets, radishes, herbs, green beans, peach and fig trees, and more. And of course Lola Pokorny is using all this freshness in the kitchen. “And we’re using some of the herbs at the bar,” she says, noting craft cocktails are a new addition at this location.

Pokorny opened the original Lola’s in Downtown’s Holsum Lofts in 2009, well ahead of the current Downtown dining boom. “The gentleman who owned the space prior to me told me I’d never get anyone in after dark, and other restaurant owners in the area told me the same thing,” Pokorny recalls. “I told them, ‘Watch me.’”

She did it, too, expanding a bustling lunch business into a solid dinner crowd. An appearance on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives proved to be the tipping point, and now the Downtown spot is inundated with taxi-traveling tourists.

Lola’s in Summerlin opened a few months ago, a much larger space with a charming patio, a full bar and a replica of the original’s oyster grilling station in the middle of the dining room. This kitchen is as big as the entire Downtown restaurant, so there will be new additions to the menu, but the classics are staying put—gumbo, crab cakes, shrimp Creole and po’ boys on Leidenheimer’s French bread. It’s just the kind of spice sleepy Summerlin needs.

Lola's 241 W. Charleston Blvd., 702-227-5652. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday, noon-10 p.m. 1220 N. Town Center Drive, 702-871-5652, Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.