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Like any true Louisiana man, Joe Amorello learned the fine art of boiling crawfish from his dad more than 25 years ago. But this story isn’t just about spice blends or boil times. This is about community, connection and crawfish in a crisis.

 Back in the spring of 2020, when the world shut down and uncertainty filled the air, one thing was certain in Zachary: if you wanted live crawfish, Amorello was your guy.

Operating under the name Quality Crawfish, Amorello became the unofficial crawfish plug of the pandemic, delivering sacks of mudbugs to porches and driveways all over town, maintaining a respectable six feet of buffer. Thanks to him, my own family boiled more crawfish in April 2020 than we ever had before. And we weren’t the only ones.

If you recall, spring of 2020 was the season of Joe Exotic; a customer dubbed Amorello “Joe Aquatic, the Crawfish King of Quality Crawfish.”

Actually, Amorello remembers, he is the reigning champ of Zachary's Chamber of Commerce Crawfish Competition; however, that's partly because that event hasn't been hosted since 2019, when he won 1st Place. 

Amorello's sources run deep—literally. “There are crawfish ponds every hundred yards in South Louisiana,” he says. Where to source–ponds or spillway–just depends on the time of year. He knows where to get the good stuff, and he’s been doing it long enough to tell you what kind of season we’re in just by the water level.

“It’s gonna be a good season,” he says, “It’ll probably last longer than early July. There’s a lot of cold water coming down the river, and that’ll prolong the season a bit,” he says. 

These days, Amorello's back to his roots—hooking up friends and family with live sacks and occasionally pulling out the pot to boil just for fun. A USMC veteran, small business owner, and proud #girldad, Joe Amorello brings a whole lot of heart to everything he does—especially when there’s a cold beer in hand and crawfish in the pot.

So here’s to Joe Aquatic: crawfish king, community hero, and the reason so many of us made a little joy out of a strange season.

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