Combining decades of individual experience in the restaurant industry, the family opened the first Anaya’s Seafood location in Richardson’s The Shire at CityLine development at the end of 2020 and at the height of the pandemic.
“I was working for a company for almost 20 years and... they let me go,” Anaya said. “I started working for another company and I figured out that we can do this ourselves.”
While prepared for the challenges of getting a restaurant off the ground, Anaya said the business did not make a profit for the first few months of business. However, customers continued coming in, helping market the restaurant to the community through word of mouth and bringing more patrons in.
“It was really, really hard,” Anaya said. “We worked for a couple of months, and we were not making a penny.”
Those clients were attracted by food that Anaya said is not the specialty of many places in the region: Tex-Mex seafood. It’s a cuisine that comes from taking the American seafood staples of his adopted country with the Mexican spices of his upbringing.
In addition to getting fresh fish shipped in nearly six days per week that helps keep a rotating seasonal specialty menu, the restaurant also features what Anaya says is “best happy hour” around town, with infused liquors made in-house going into a lineup of creative cocktails.
“We like to say, ‘We are just mixing things that we know are going to be good,” Anaya said. “Mexican people, we like spices. But we tried to not spice anything more than we know what people would like in here.”
The combination of spiced up dishes and specialty cocktails has helped Anaya’s Seafood grow across the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In 2021, the family opened a location in Addison. The following year, they opened another in West Plano at the Preston Towne Crossing.
With eyes on keeping that momentum going, Anaya said the restaurant is planning to open a fourth location by the end of the year. However, he added that they are still determining where that location will be.
As the business continues to open more locations, Anaya said he is not looking to expand beyond what the family can handle, prioritizing quality and consistency across each restaurant as it looks to keep serving up dishes inspired by the kinds of food the Anaya family likes to eat and wants to share with its customers.
“The quality that we serve and ... the atmosphere that we have in each restaurant, people talk about it all the time. They enjoy every single meal,” Anaya said. “I feel like if I’m going to spend my money to eat somewhere, I’m expecting to walk out good.”
Business information:
Anaya’s Seafood, 3600 Shire Blvd., Ste. 100, Richardson.
214-501-2540. www.anayaseafood.com.
Hours: Mon.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sat.-Sun. 10 a.m.-9 p.m.
