Pearland shop a destination for boiled, live crawfish

PEARLAND, Texas (FOX 26) - On the corner of Plum and Main streets in Pearland sits an old fuel station. It's red in color, but if you look closely, you see a sign in the window for boiled crawfish. The small stop is becoming a major spot to buy the seasonal 'mud bugs.'

"You just come up to the window, they are $4.99 a pound," says Atchafalaya Crawfish general manager Matt Rhymer. "We do a special on Tuesday and Wednesdays where they are $3.99 a pound and we keep them hot and ready. We have a big box that we keep them in. You just come up and tell us how much you want, we have all the corn, potatoes and sausage, all sold separately."

The shop sells around ten pounds of cooked crawfish per costumer that comes up to the window, but even more of the live variety. In fact, so many that a driver drops off around 120 35-pound bags each night.

"It's pretty easy the process of cooking -- it really isn't that hard,"  says Andrew Alaniz. "It's kind of like riding a bike, as soon as you learn how to do it, it just doesn't go away."Alaniz is one of several cooks at Atchafalaya Crawfish and says he enjoys serving customers and has for the last two seasons.

"This was my first job, so just coming in and having a new experience, cooking, just having people come up just right there and they will tell you, 'Hey these crawfish are pretty good! Do you do this pretty often?,' and I say, 'I just started, but I try my best,'" adds Alaniz.

The business is based in Fenton, Louisiana and supplies thousands of pounds a week for Pearland customers and Houston-area restaurants. 

"You know it could be 30-to-40 sacks a day, at the end of the year we will do a couple hundred thousand pounds here and we will wholesale over a million probably to other restaurants", says Rhymer.

The shop is open six days a week from Tuesday until Sunday opening at 9 a.m. and closing at 9 p.m.