With a struggling economy and less-than-normal crawfish production, restaurant owners around the state are trying their best to take advantage of the increase in seafood-seeking consumers during the Lenten season.Lent is a 40-day period of fasting and prayer between Mardi Gras and Easter when Catholics and several Protestant denominations prepare themselves for the annual commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter.Catholics aged 14 years and older are to abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday, all Fridays of Lent and Good Friday. To abstain from meat means refraining from eating beef, veal, pork or poultry. The consumption of fish, shellfish and reptiles is permitted, according to the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge Web site.Meagan Blake, early childhood education junior and practicing Catholic, said she enjoys eating seafood at restaurants during Lent. Blake said her family typically orders fried seafood po-boys from small restaurants near her home.And Blake has a lot of restaurants to choose from.According to the Louisiana Restaurant Association, there are about 10,700 eating-and-drinking places in the state with an annual economic impact of $9.9 billion.With that much competition, restaurant owners are doing their best to capitalize on abstaining consumers by offering deals on seafood dishes and boiled crawfish.Shantell Pearl, marketing director at Mike Anderson’s Seafood Restaurant, said the restaurant was busy on the first two Lenten Fridays. She said Thursday and Friday lunches are usually pretty busy anyway, so she wasn’t surprised or understaffed for the big Friday crowds.”Usually people that come in on Fridays know what they want,” Pearl said. “They like our seafood lunch specials.”Mike Anderson’s offers several weekday lunch specials including fried catfish and shrimp and “Hot & Spicy Pasta Primavera”— shrimp, crawfish tails, purple onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and broccoli sautéed in olive oil and a blend of spices. The Friday special was “The Clarice,” a fresh fish filet deep fried and topped with shrimp étouffée.Pearl said Mike Anderson’s does sell boiled crawfish, but it has not been very popular so far this year.It has been a tough year for crawfish farmers, and restaurants and seafood markets are being forced to charge more for the Lenten staple. Crawfish are in lower quantities than past years because of low rainfall totals and a rise in hurricane related saltwater in the freshwater crawfish fields.Rotolo’s Pizzeria has not seen a shortage of people looking for boiled crawfish, despite the slightly higher prices this season.Store manager Berg Bergeron said Rotolo’s management decided to serve boiled crawfish for the first time this Lent in an attempt to increase business and get some new faces in the restaurant.Bergeron said Rotolo’s boils 10-15 sacks of crawfish each night from Thursday through Saturday starting at 5 p.m. and lasting until they run out, which is usually around 7:30.Bergeron said Rotolo’s also sells more shrimp during Lent than they would normally.”We make sure we have extra cases of shrimp,” Bergeron said. “People want shrimp with everything — pizzas, salads, calzones, sandwiches. Just lots of shrimp.”While Rotolo’s is making an endeavor into the seafood industry, Copeland’s of New Orleans has been well entrenched in it for 25 years.Copeland’s, which has 12 locations throughout the state, is featuring several of its original seafood dishes for the Lenten season at discounted prices. Dishes include Oyster Artichoke, BBQ Shrimp Orleans and Shrimp Carribe—seasoned Gulf shrimp dipped in beer batter and coated with coconut flakes.Another well-known seafood staple is Acme Oyster House. The oyster house, which recently opened its first Baton Rouge location on Perkins Road near Acadian Thruway, specializes in chargrilled oysters and fried seafood poboys.Matthew Butcher, assistant general manager at the Acme Baton Rouge branch, said business has been great since opening the new location in September.”We’ve been busy since day one,” Butcher said. “We didn’t see the big increase for the first Friday of Lent like we were expecting.” Butcher said despite not having a big Lenten increase, the restaurant’s numbers are still where they want to be because they have been seeing so much volume anyway. Butcher said a typical wait for a table for two on Friday night is 30 to 40 minutes.”Typically business builds week to week as Lent progresses,” Butcher said. “We’re just happy to have so many people coming in every night.”
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Contact Jack LeBlanc at [email protected]