Seafood boils are one of the hottest culinary trends in the United States this year, and two black entrepreneurs are riding that wave of popularity to record sales.
A staple of Black Southern cuisine, especially in the U.S. state of Louisiana, the seafood boil has achieved national recognition, with chains such as The Juicy Crab expanding rapidly – it now has 52 restaurants in 10 states. Grocery chains including HEB and Rouse’s have begun selling seafood boils to go, and Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.-based Two Fish Distribution is expanding distribution to 1,000 retail locations, including Kroger and Meijer outlets. Two Fish recently announced a new distribution deal with Harris Teeter for its with its shrimp, crab leg, and combination options at grocery stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Florida, and Washington D.C.
“With preparation in just under 10 minutes, families this summer can enjoy creating their own seafood boil right at home. Their cult-like following hopes to bring the popular tradition with a taste of Chicago to Harris Teeter frozen aisles in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions and provide a unique, premium seafood frozen option at a great value to their consumers,” the company said in a press release.
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.-based Two Fish Founder Yasmin Curtis told SeafoodSource her entrepreneurial dream is to take her product nationwide.
“My dream is for Two Fish to be present in every grocery store in the entire U.S. I want to be a household name like Pepsi or Coca Cola,” Curtis said. “Those are the heights that I feel like we can go to just based off of the products that we have.”
Curtis said she isn’t worried her seafood boils are a trendy fad that might lose popularity once they’ve had their moment.
“Whether it's hot or not, once it's in the grocery and retail outlets, it will always be a consistent thing,” she said. "As long as we're consistent, we will last forever.”
Chad Dillon, the owner of The Boiler Seafood and Crab Boil in Buckhead, Georgia, U.S.A., outside of the state’s capital and largest city of Atlanta, recently hit USD 10 million (EUR 7.3 million) in sales since he opened in 2020, according to Forbes. The Boiler’s menu features a range of seafood boil options, including snow crab, Dungeness crab, mussels, and crawfish, which are then cooked with potatoes, corn, and a special sauce. The restaurant also features seafood egg rolls, crab cakes, fried lobster tails, shrimp scampi, calamari, étouffée, fried snapper, fried salmon, and fried catfish.
Dillon was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised by Jamaican emigrees. Out of college, he sought to become a franchisee of The Juicy Crab, but said he was rejected due to lack of experience. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic delaying his subsequent plan to open his own restaurant, once he managed to get The Boiler Seafood and Crab Boil’s doors open, he said he found immediate success.
"Literally from day one, it's been going crazy," he said.
His USD 200 (EUR 180) fried king crab product has become a viral sensation on TikTok, and the restaurant has become a celebrity hangout.
"Now we have people flying in from [different] states to try this fried king crab, and they're paying [for] it, so we've been doing pretty good," he said.
Dillon is now looking to expand to other locations and open other concepts, some seafood-related. Additionally, Dillon has been a prominent supporter of initiatives to help formerly incarcerated Black men navigate their post-prison lives, including the Venturing Outside Foundation and the Metro-Atlanta Reentry Prison – Aces Program.
“I am a thinker and innovator, so even without a culinary background I enjoy finding voids in the business market and creating solutions; creating restaurant concepts from ideation to execution, coming up with new menu items, and creating amazing customer experiences,” Dillon told Travel Noire. “I’m also very hands-on. I spend about 10-plus hours a day being in the restaurant, running errands, and handling needed logistics for the restaurant.”
Photo courtesy of Chad Dillon/Instagram
