Popular Macon seafood restaurant continues to expand with new location, food trailer

Louvenia’s Seafood Market, which opened in Macon nearly a year ago after its owners launched a popular food truck in 2018, is expanding once again with the opening of Louvenia’s Crab Cake Hut. T

Owners Jason and Michelle Walker recently added a second storefront inside the Macon State Farmers Market focusing on their crab cake burgers, crab cakes and crab cake egg rolls. The menu is very different from the food truck and the Brookhaven location , where they specialize in seafood boils and fried dinner plates.

“Originally, we wanted to add crab cakes to the Brookhaven location,” Michelle said. “When the restaurant became available at the farmer’s market, we decided to take over it and thought the crab cakes would be an excellent addition or spinoff to have at the market.”

Crab Cake Hut

The food at the Crab Cake Hut ranges from fresh crab cakes to crab burgers, which include their signature dishes like fried lobster tail and seafood salad. The egg rolls have been a major success as well. Michelle said that adding egg rolls to the menu was a compromise.

“The deal was I got the fried lobster tail for the burgers and he had been working on a crab cake egg roll for months,” Michelle said. “The egg rolls have done great. People love them. I had one customer tell me it was one of the best things she has ever eaten in her life.”

The Crab Cake Hut also offers outside seating, as opposed to the Brookhaven restaurant, which is take-out only.

Strong customer support

The launch of the new location was delayed by a few months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But Michelle said their supportive customer base has allowed the Crab Cake Hut to get off to a good start.

“We have seen a difference with COVID-19 with people getting out a little slower but the people that have come out have given some excellent feedback,” Michelle said. “We are going to bring the best quality that we can and people’s expectations of us is to have quality food. That doesn’t change.”

During the shutdown, the pair released seasonings and sauces on their website along with tutorials on how to enjoy some of their signature dishes from home.

“Some people are still reluctant to get out and [the online seasonings and sauces] have worked extremely well, especially for the places that we haven’t been able to pull up to with the food truck,” Michelle said. “We have been able to get them our all-purpose seasoning and our sauces and they have been able to do low country boils at home.”

Growing quickly

In addition to their new menu, the Walkers utilize their food truck for people who want to enjoy low country boils.

Louvenia’s Seafood Market has grown quickly from a food truck to a pair of restaurants in less than two years, with plans in the works for more. Michelle said the Walkers had a food trailer for a project with the Georgia Department of Agriculture and have decided to use it for the Crab Cake Hut similar to one that they have for their seafood boils.

“We went ahead and had it decked out, wrapped and branded. We plan on using that to go to different locations and pull up just like we did with the food truck,” Michelle said. “We want everyone especially in rural locations to be able to try it like when we first started out.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 11:20 AM.