Third-generation fisherman Brad Aplin has fished all along the Gulf of Mexico, including waters in Texas, much of Louisiana and a good portion of Florida.
“I was running a crab boat in Galveston Bay when I was seven years old for my dad on weekends,” Aplin said.
Decades of experience in the seafood business in the Gulf has driven Aplin’s success in the restaurant industry as his Champions-area eatery Bluewater Seafood has thrived since opening in 1996, spawning two other locations in north Harris County.
“I tell everybody I don’t know anything about the restaurant business, but I know everything about the seafood business,” Aplin said. “It helps us with the quality of the seafood when they’re buying the stuff and how to handle the seafood in the restaurant.”
Bluewater offers a wide array of fried, grilled and boiled seafood selections with a Cajun flavor, serving everything from etouffee to fried alligator. Although the restaurant has a number of customer favorites, Aplin said crawfish are still Bluewater’s top seller between February and June.
“That’s when we do the bulk of our business,” he said.
In the ’90s, Aplin said he was looking to get out of commercial fishing, a dangerous profession that has taken the lives of five of his family members. He and his friend Vincent Mai set out to find a location the two poor commercial fishermen could afford and found the FM 1960 site.
Mai dropped out of the venture, but Aplin and his wife, Ping, stuck with the business. Nearly 20 years later, Aplin’s gamble seems to have paid off.
Renovations on the FM 2920 location were completed in September after Aplin purchased the site back from his mother, Irene Snellgrove.
“[Customers] love the new renovations,” Manager Victor Tapia said. “They love how [we] treat them here, and the food quality is a lot better.”
Aplin said he is looking for a fourth site somewhere in Sugar Land and is considering adding more salads and grilled dishes to the menu. However one thing that is not likely to change is the family-friendly atmosphere at Bluewater, where the owner knows the vast majority of his customers.
“I want people to feel like they’ve come home when they eat [here] or [are] going to a friend’s house to eat,” he said.
