Galveston Seafood Company sailed against pandemic headwinds to bring coastal fare to Abilene – Abilene Reporter-News

When Galveston Seafood Company opened in early March 2020, who knew that in a week a pandemic would hit like a rogue wave.

Its home portwas the iconic Towne Crier Steakhouse, which opened in 1966 at 818 E. Highway 80 and closed in 2016.

As indoor dining ceased across the state, Robert Ochoa Sr. and his son, Robert Ochoa Jr., pivoted from their original business plan to showcasequality seafoodreminiscent of Robert Sr.'s Galveston upbringing.

"I went to a survival menu instantly," Robert Ochoa Sr. said.

The plan quickly changed.

"I had it made out and printed that night and we implemented it the next daywhere we would have meatloaf and certain staples that we made really well."

The menu was pared to dishes thatmaintained their quality fortake-out orders.

A seafood restaurant in the old Germany-styledbuilding with wooden beams in the high-loft interior is not a stretch aesthetically for Ochoa.

"I always called it the capsizedship," Ochoa said. "When you look up, it looks like a boat that's capsized."

Far from capsizing, Galveston Seafood Company adapted to anew pandemic normal, returned to a menu dominated by fresh seafood and implemented an aggressive social media campaign.

Not only has the restaurant stayed afloat, it has found a new port of call.

A second location at 4534 Buffalo Gap Road opened Nov. 1.

It's tucked at the west end of a shopping center, in a spot previously occupied by Don Luis Caf and years ago Spano's Italian Restaurant.

At the new location, extensive renovations in the dining areainclude removingcolumns, replacing the lighting and painting the walls white to brighten the atmosphere.Large black-and-white photos of Galveston landmarks and waterways convey the coastal vibe. The kitchen and bathrooms also were remodeled,Ochoa said.

Ochoa has been a businessman since 1983, but this is his first restaurant, he said.

"I'm in techmore than anything. I've been in tech since '97," Ochoa said.

Although he worked mainly in the floral sector, the tech background is instrument in Ochoa's handling of restaurant operations. He credits his wife, Elizabeth, as the impetus for the the new venture.

"She thought there should be better seafood offerings in the town," Ochoa said.

That dovetailed with his younger days of joining friends to sein shrimp, crabs and fish and harvestoysters for a beach bonfire and feast.He said he also worked in the 1970s at Gaido's Seafood Restaurant, a Galveston landmark known for hand-prepared fresh seafood and white-tablecloth service.

Zestier seafoods then entered his life, thanks to hisprevious wife,and Robert Jr.'s mother, who was from Oakdale, Louisiana.

"That's how I got my first stint inlearning how to cook Cajun food and real Southern food," Ochoa said.

He honed his cooking skills by watching shows with Graham Kerr ("The Galloping Gourmet"), Julia Childs and Justin Wilson, known for his Cajun-inspired cuisine.

"When my son was born, I would take him fishing and crabbing and we did this for decades. We'd cook what we catch," he said.

Before the restaurant opened, Robert Jr. worked for a friend in buying shrimp directly from the boats and selling the product to H-E-B and other outlets, Ochoa said.

"He then got his owncommercial fishing boat catching red snapper," Ochoa said about his son,who also had a construction and cleaning company.

Galveston Seafood Company's food is personal for Ochoa, more like cooking from home.

"Some of what we have you won't taste anywhere else," Ochoa said.

To gauge his restaurant's food, Ochoa ate at restaurants along the way to Florida on a trip four months ago. Those included "some of the biggest restaurants known for their food," he said.

He said he wanted to know where his food stood.

"I would put our best 15 items against their best 15, and we would beat them," Ochoa said. "I had no idea what we were up there, because when you grow up around seafood, you just don't think about it."

Non-seafood items are on the menu too, and not just as an afterthought.

"We keep the staples of chicken fried steak and other stuff so people who don't want seafood can eat the other things," Ochoa said.

Ribeye steaks are hand cut, and the chicken fried steak is made with wagyu beef, Ochoa said.

"I'm not a chicken fried steak. person, but the people who are, they rave about it," he said.

And, he hopes people who think they don't like seafood to give their dishes a chance.

"They've never tasted really good seafood, and they never gave their palate a chance to see which type of seafood they like and they don't like. Maybe they would like a pan fried, clean tasting fish because most people do not like a fishy taste," Ochoa said.

The menu continues to be a few stapled letter-sized white pages, allowing for quick changes.

"We're always trying to refine what we do because we never want to be like a one-trick pony," Ochoa said.

Flexibility allows them to capitalize on product availability, test new recipes and adapt to customer behavior.

"We started with just traditional,regular, everyday menu items to get people to taste our catfish, this and that so they could see the difference between what they think is good catfish, and what good catfish really tastes like," Ochoa said.

Next, "we started introducing better dishes with scallops and different types of sauces and this and that," he said.

Changes also can be in sourcing their proteins. Alligator previously was prebattered when ordered.

"Now, we get alligator filets. We filet them out and then we make fresh alligator nachos, alligator bites," Ochoa said.

A more recent adjustment has been the introduction of seafood platters and lobster.

Ochoa said the quality of their seafood, such as bigger shrimp, is one reason their food stands out.

The No. 1 seller is the catfish platter, followed by Cajun seafood pasta, fish and chips, shrimp alfredo and red fish Pontchartrain.

A flexible menu is in keeping with Ochoa's business strategy to pivot operations in response to market conditions.

That means the staff of about 45 is rotated between locations to respond to ebbs and flows in customer traffic and maintain food consistency.

And, days of service are altered when needed. The restaurants recently shifted days of operation to Wednesday through Sunday, partlyin response to the Omicron variant's spike in COVID-19 cases, Ochoa said.

Compressed hours may continue at the south-side location as construction progresses on Buffalo Gap Road.

The next big change will be the introduction of Sunday brunch in about two weeks, with free mimosas.

"That's gonna have new stuff you've never seen before," Ochoa said about the brunch menu.

Robert Jr. has become the face of Galveston Seafood Company through his daily Facebook videos about hours, menu specials and free offers.

"That got us into another sector to where people look for his videos every day to see. We can'tgo anywhere without somebody knowing who he is," Ochoa said.

Connecting with customers face to face is important too, he said, to foster word-of-mouth advertising. His philosophy is simple:"touch every table, talk to every customer."

At the end of the day, however, the most personal aspect of the restaurant may be the food reminiscent of Ochoa's coastal days.

When he discussed the restaurant idea with his family, "I said I'd like to share that experience with people in Abilene because I really fell in love with the city and the people," Ochoa said.

Laura Gutschke is a general assignment reporterand food columnist and manages online content for the Reporter-News. If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalistswith a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com.

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Galveston Seafood Company sailed against pandemic headwinds to bring coastal fare to Abilene - Abilene Reporter-News