Byron family to open a fresh seafood, meat market in Warner Robins. Mudbugs anyone?

Leslie and Josh Sharpe decided to chart a new course for their lives.

She was a nurse. He was in management in the car business.

In June, they’re opening Saltwater Outpost, a fresh fish and meat market, in the Galleria Square shopping center at 4027 Watson Blvd, Suite 110, in Warner Robins.

“We just, together, wanted to do this business and kinda go down a different path with our family,” Leslie Sharpe said. “We’ve got two sons that are 9 and 12 and we wanted something for our family to do and experience together.”

Team Sharpe, which refers to the family of four, is the name of their LLC, and they’re doing business as Saltwater Outpost.

They want their customers to “experience the best seafood and quality meats.”

Their business model is one developed by relatives who own Saltwater Markets.

“We’ll be getting fresh seafood from all around the world,” Josh Sharpe said. “My cousin and her husband currently own two of the markets: one in South Carolina and one in North Carolina, and they’re opening up a third one in South Carolina.

“They started in 2015, and my wife and I have just enjoyed fresh fish and food all our lives and wanted to start sharing what they had with everyone around here.”

Josh Sharpe grew up in Clover, South Carolina, where his cousin, Elizabeth Boyd, and her husband, Clint, opened their first Saltwater Markets. The Boyds’ second location is in Gastonia, North Carolina, and their third is opening in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

“They’ve been our mentors through this whole process,” said Leslie Sharpe, who grew up in Wilcox County in South Georgia.

The Sharpes moved to Byron in 2009 to be closer to her family. Their home is just a few miles from their new business.

“Even though I’m from South Georgia, my dad (Dwain McGlamry Sr.) has driven up here and worked for 40 years for McGlamry Properties — (McGlamry) that’s my maiden name — and so I was just familiar with the area,” Sharpe said. “When we moved from Charleston, South Carolina to here, we wanted to be near a decent sized hospital so that’s why we kind of chose the Middle Georgia area.”

For the last 11 years before retiring in August, she had been working in outpatient surgery at Houston Medical Center. Her nursing career spanned more than two decades.

A new path

What to expect at Saltwater Outpost?

“You can expect the freshest seafood that would be available from all over the world from Hawaii, New Zealand, up and down the coast,” Josh Sharpe said.

And what’s offered and when may surprise some.

“People have the assumption that oysters, you only eat ‘em in the months that end in ‘R.’ There are sayings like that,” he said. “But in different places, year round, they’re fresh, and you have oyster farms.”

Leslie Sharpe chimed in, “Great customer service.”

“A lot of people tend to go towards the same stuff, you know, salmon, shrimp, scallops, their safe zone, and we’re hoping we can introduce people to things that they haven’t tried before: Hawaii fish or Trigger Fish or Wreck fish or John Dory.”

Both their boys, Benjamin, 12, and Cameron, 9, will be helping out at the business.

“Our 9 year old, he loves fishing, freshwater, saltwater, whatever,” Leslie Sharpe said. “He could probably tell us more about those fish than we know. He’s a smart cookie.”

Their eldest can be seen on their business Facebook page scraping meat from between the bones of an 80-pound Halibut to make Ceviche, a dish of fresh raw fish cured in fresh citrus juice and seasonings.

Josh Sharpe said he likes to use lime and lemon juices, with fresh cutup tomato, jalapeno, purple onion and salt and pepper tossed together and refrigerated for about an hour.

“Everything from the store will be totally unprepared, but we’re going to have dry goods and seasonings and stuff like that,” he said. “One of our main goals is to just to make the fresh items that we’re getting simple for everyone to prepare.

“We’ll have some whole fish that you can just slice and throw on the grill. You can wrap in tinfoil with some lemon dill — something inside of the fish, like scampi butter — to just grill or smoke. It doesn’t have to be complex.”

Their goal is “to make cooking fun,” he said.

“It’s to make it enjoyable with your family ... with just the freshest you can get.”

Much of what they offer will be sushi or sashimi grade fish that doesn’t require cooking.

They also expect to carry Faroe Islands and Steelhead salmon. They’ll also have crawfish, or mudbugs as Leslie Sharpe grew up calling them.

In addition to seafood, their meat selection is expected to include rib eye and sirloin steaks.

“We’ll have some featured meats every now and again — not all the time — like some American Wagyu, Tomahawks and burgers that are not just regular beef burgers,” Josh Sharpe said.

Alligator and Bison burgers

Customers may see some alligator burgers or Bison burgers and fillets for sale.

The Sharpes expect to go live on Facebook to share what’s available in their market each day.

“We’ll have the seafood and steak mix of everything there and some dry goods, maybe some local produce, pastas things like that,” he said.

The idea is to have the protein and the fixings on hand so that customers can have whole meal options to take home and prepare.

Merchandise like T-shirts, hats and koozies will also be for sale.

The Sharpes are waiting on their custom-made seafood display to arrive before opening. They’d like to open June 1, but it’s looking more like the middle of the month at at this point.

The Sharpes are considering doing pre-orders up until their to-be-determined grand opening “just to get people introduced to the products and coming to the store.”

If that happens, they’ll post the availability on Facebook. Operating hours are to be determined.

Brandon Obear, who works at the U.S. National Guard recruiting center located next to Saltwater Outpost, said he can’t wait for the new business to open.

Obear said he drives to Savannah once a month to buy about 15 pounds of seafood from Charles Rousel Seafood.

Soon, he’ll only have to walk next door to get his seafood fix.

“We’ve had so much love and support form people,” Leslie Sharpe said. “Our families have been awesome ... We just appreciate that outpouring of support ... Can’t stress that enough.”

This story was originally published April 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.