“It started off with me frying turkeys back in the 2001,” Lee said. “It went from two turkeys to eight turkeys, and 20 turkeys to 80 turkeys. It’s something that just continued to grow and build from when we started out.”
As orders for Lee’s food continued to pile up, he said he realized he needed more space to expand his operation. He initially opened Kid Kreole Kooking as a food trailer and catering service in 2015 before opening a brick-and-mortar location in Humble 2019.
According to Lee, Kid Kreole Kooking offers a wide variety of Cajun cuisine, including fried fish, crawfish, gumbo and boiled seafood.
“One of the main things when you're dealing with a creole restaurant is fish,” Lee said. “Then we added the pastas. The zydeco pasta and seafood pasta are some of the main attractions. The zydeco pasta has crawfish, shrimp, chicken and sausage, and the seafood pasta has crawfish and shrimp.”
Additionally, Lee said the restaurant still offers catering services for large groups and events, including Thanksgiving specials on the fried turkeys that helped launch his career.
While Lee said the transition from operating a food trailer and catering service to operating a brick-and-mortar restaurant was not always easy, he said the experience prepared him well for the COVID-19 shutdowns that would be enforced only months after he opened the restaurant.
“When everybody else was running and scrambling to get their delivery services activated, I already had them,” Lee said. “There are some things I would do differently during COVID[-19], but I'm glad that I was able to make it through it and operate without any issues.”
Lee said he has no plans of expanding the restaurant to additional locations until he is sure he can do so without compromising the quality of the food. Still, he said it’s something he would consider if he could find the right staff members to help run another location.
Looking back at his decades of cooking for the people around him, Lee said he most enjoys seeing a person’s face light up as they take a bite of his Cajun cuisine.
“[I love] seeing people's reaction—the satisfaction that they enjoy the food,” Lee said. “I'm pretty sure they're satisfied when they are leaving with what they got today.”
Kid Kreole Kooking
9739 N. Sam Houston Parkway E., Ste. 100, Humble
281-570-2746
www.kidkreolekooking.com
Hours: Mon. and Wed.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-3 p.m., closed Tue.
