When Dan and Chrissy Anthony opened the first Sea Island Shrimp House with friend Henry Reed in 1965, their goal was to provide fresh, affordable seafood to San Antonio diners. They had no idea then that the concept would grow to six Shrimp Houses all over the city, feeding some 2 million diners a year.
Seafood still constitutes 95 percent of the restaurant chain’s menu, which showcases 12 species of seafood including Mississippi catfish, cod, Texas Gulf shrimp, red fish and rainbow trout. Their son, Barclay, still buys from many of the same fishing fleets as his parents did 45 years ago. And affordable pricing remains one of the chain’s distinguishing features. That’s why increasing prices across the menu by just over 1 percent this year was such a hard decision for executives at its parent company, Sea Island Development.
The hike was to compensate for commodity prices, which increased 25 to 30 percent over the last six months. “Everything across the board has to be delivered to us and gas is a tax on everything. This is unchartered territory for us,” says Barclay Anthony, CEO.
The price of North Atlantic pollock is one example. “Four years ago pollock cost us 70 percent less than it does today. There’s a much stronger global demand for quality whitefish, and coupled with the fluctuations in the U.S. dollar, it has resulted in historically high levels in pollock pricing,” Anthony says.
Click here to read the full story from the December issue of SeaFood Business magazine >
