In case you live under a rock, it’s almost crawfish season in Louisiana. And in case you haven’t driven down Hwy 19 lately, there is a lot of improvement going on. Within the last three years, the corridor has seen major cash intensive building improvements: Take 5 Oil Change, HomeLine Furniture, Stricklin & Porter Construction, Delta Finance, Winn-Dixie’s face lift, The Pilates House, and now (drumroll please!) Spillway Boilers Restaurant is coming to town! Opening day is projected to be March 1st, inspections and LDH pending.
We spoke with one of the owners, Cade Frey, and he filled us in on progress and what to expect.
Ownership consists of two couples, Cade & Kelsi Frey and Trey & DeAnn Morgan. This will be their first restaurant venture. But when it comes to crawfish, this is not their first rodeo. Frey’s family roots are in farming, and his father, Marty, raises crawfish commercially.
“When I was a kid, I would go over there and sell 10 sacks a day!” Frey adds.
Every crawfish on the tray at Spillway Boilers will come from the family’s ponds in Pointe Coupee Parish–straight from the pond to their cooler. They will also be selling them live. You might say, they come from the pond to the plate—that has a nice ring to it, right?
Now, to what everyone wants to know—What’s on the menu?
“I want people to know we’re not just a boiling joint. We are a full restaurant, open year-round,” Frey says.
Customers can expect all boiled seafood, a little crab if they can price it right, and a full menu including burgers, poboys, salads, and steak night.
When asked how much renovation was needed, Frey responded, “We did well over double what we anticipated.”
“That’s just how we are. We wanted to give everyone a really nice option to come and enjoy,” he says.
Frey mentioned that the former building owners Marty and Carole Wilkins stopped in to see how things were looking. “Carole was speechless,” according to Frey. We sent our P&P staff out to the site to grab some pics, and the renovations are truly astounding. The bathrooms are finished with large wall tile, high-end wallpaper and gold fixtures. The owners refinished the floors, lighting, trimmed walls with modern white slats, Fixer-Upper style. The booths feature modern light brown leather seat cushions with walnut slab live edge tops. The kitchen floor was coated with work-safe epoxy coating. It is an immaculate array of stainless steel and high end hoods and fridges, with a new addition soup lift for large-batch gumbos and Louisiana favorites. Even the roof is getting revamped with hurricane-safe standing seam metal.
There are more plans for outdoor renovation to come, but we’ll have to check back in closer to March 1st.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: don’t ruin this for us, Zachary’s Rants & Raves.
