Megan Wyatt

mbwyatt@theadvertiser.com

A new restaurant coming to the Ambassador Town Center anchored by Costco promises to deliver Southern seafood dishes in an upscale-casual environment.

Half Shell Oyster House plans to open its ninth location Oct. 10 in a 5,850-square-foot building in the new south Lafayette development. It will be the first Louisiana location for Gulf Coast Restaurant Group, the company that owns Half Shell.

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Kevin Fish, vice president of operations for the restaurant group, says there are five things that make Half Shell successful. They include:

1. The ambiance: "You just feel good in our place with the hand-painted murals, wrought iron and wood features and jazz music playing in the background."

2. The menu: "We have a black leather menu with silver accents across it and a fantastic drink menu where you won't find strawberry daiquiris."

3. The service: "Our servers have to pass a test and give the same level of service you'd expect from a fine-dining restaurant."

4. The food: "We continually win awards for our food."

5. The check: "You'd expect to pay 50 percent more for your food than you did."

Bob Taylor, president and founder of Half Shell Oyster House, developed the restaurant concept after losing his home and business in Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

After opening a different restaurant concept, Taylor opened the first Half Shell location with Fish and another partner in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 2009. They now have eight locations in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

The restaurant group plans to open more locations along the I-10 and I-12 corridors. Covington, Hammond, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and Beaumont, Texas, are being considered for future growth.

The Ambassador Town Center availability is what prompted Fish and his partners to open in Lafayette before other planned markets.

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"We're restaurant professionals that saw a niche that really wasn't being fulfilled in Lafayette," Fish says. "And that's a nice, Southern, Creole seafood restaurant."

About 17 percent of the restaurant's sales comes from oysters.

Options include raw oysters on the half shell ($9 for half dozen), charbroiled oysters with butter, garlic and herb sauce or a spicy, smoky sauce ($10 for half dozen), baked with herbs, mushroom, crab, shrimp, bacon, Italian bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese ($11 for a half dozen) or baked with spinach, cream cheese, herbs, Pernod and Parmesan cheese ($10 for half dozen). You can also order the oyster sampler, which includes all but the raw oysters ($19 for a dozen).

The menu features far more than oysters, however. Options range from seafood and steak to pasta, burgers, po'boys and more.

The redfish Orleans ($26) is the best-selling dish on the menu. The blackened fish is topped with shrimp sauteed in a smoky Cajun Orleans sauce and lump crab meat.

The side options for dishes range from sweet potato creme brulee and fried okra to grilled asparagus with Gorgonzola butter and Cajun-boiled, Parmesan-garlic fried potatoes.

"We toured the area and the other restaurants to see what was going on in the area, and we just felt like we would be the perfect fit for Lafayette," Fish says. "We felt that we would fulfill an unmet need in the market. There's not really anything else like it. We put flavor in our food, and I think the customers in Lafayette will enjoy it."

Drago's Seafood Restaurant, another oyster house that announced plans in 2015 to open a Lafayette location, still plans to enter the market.

Drago's co-owner Tommy Cvitanovich said he looks forward to being in the same market as Half Shell.

"I'm not concerned at all. Not at all," Cvitanovich says. "There is enough business to go around for any good operator."

Half Shell's Lafayette location will feature indoor and outdoor seating for up to 200 customers. The restaurant is expected to be open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

"I feel confident that we'll be the best restaurant in Lafayette," Fish says. "I truly do. The people in Lafayette are perfect for our oyster house clientele."

Learn more about Half Shell Oyster House by visiting halfshelloysterhouse.com.

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