Jay Baker coaxes his guitar into tune. His audience this afternoon, at their request, is a table of eight workmen on break from the school district buildings just across the interstate. Styrofoam plates sit scraped clean on the table in front of them except for fried catfish crumbs and the red-orange stain of crawfish sauce.

Baker, proprietor of Good Ole Boys, stands tableside, balancing the steel-string across his chest without a strap, and strums right into a country and western song he wrote.

Every line or two there is a turn of phrase that earns a chuckle of approval from the table—about ex-wives mostly.

The lunchtime performance fits the downhome tone of the place. Baker opened it five years ago this June.

"It just took off," he said.

Clientele seem to appreciate the restaurant's brand of "bayou style dining and catering" and quickly turn into repeat customers and friends, Baker said.

Outside the tent, steam rolls out of a shopping cart-sized crawfish boiler. A batch of mudbugs, red as the roiling heat itself, cooks under the supervision of Mike Baker, a nephew of Jay's. When they are done, he hefts the crawfish-laden basket and they tumble down a chute into an oversized cooler to soak in a bath of spices mixed from a 150-year-old family recipe.

Jay Baker has been in the catering and restaurant business for more than 20 years. Before he opened Good Ole Boys, he processed deer for hunters just across the interstate and later he started doing some crawfish boils on the side. Soon enough those boils topped 3,000–4,000 pounds of crawfish. But Baker wanted a little more consistency and a home base, so he opened the restaurant.

He and his group still cater six–12 events per year, mostly large corporate events and private parties.

Doing both has its challenges, he says.

"It's tough to balance the restaurant and catering, especially when we get into crawfish season," Baker said. "The restaurant requires so much attention—it's very hands-on."

In catering alone, he does probably 40,000 pounds of crawfish per year, he says. The menu for such events, however, isn't limited to crawfish. Like the restaurant, it often includes barbecue, seafood, and Cajun specialties. He has catered for oil and gas company events across the western and southern U.S.

In November 2012 he expanded the restaurant by building a tent area out in front. He thought he was going to add six tables, but before the first night was over, that had grown to 22. Frequently, on Friday and Saturday nights, that is still not enough to accommodate all of the customers. In good weather, Baker sets up additional banquet tables outdoors.

Often on those nights, residents from the nearby Wood Creek neighborhood walk the back way along an open field and cross over the road to the restaurant—that way they do not have to drive back home, Baker said.

The tables under the tent give the space an icehouse feel. And, true to form, the staff rocksalts the beer coolers to make sure they have that old Texas standby—"coldbeer"—so cold that the name itself is frozen together.

Choosing the fare for the restaurant took little thought, Baker said.

"All my dad's side is from Louisiana," Baker said. "My grandpa and grandma spoke more French than English."

Growing up there were always cat fish fries, barbecues and cookouts, he said.

"When I got older, that's all I wanted to do," he said.

Farm-raised crawfish

When farmers cut rice, they leave the stubble and the levies that are used to irrigate the fields. They damn the levies with small gates. If it rains enough, water fills them. When the weather warms up, the crawfish come out and start feeding on the stubble. Also called "pond" crawfish, they have yellow fat from eating the rice stubble.

Wild crawfish

Snow in the northern U.S. is great "basin crawfish." The snow melts and feeds the tributaries of the Mississippi River. Fresh water from the river feeds the swamps and washes any trash there out to the ocean. The crawfish that hang out in the riverbed, come up, move to the shallow water and eat the vegetation. Also called "basin" or "spillway" crawfish, they have green fat from eating wild grasses and vegetation.

Good Ole Boys

26403 I-10

Katy (281) 391-4333

www.goodoleboyscatering.com

Hours: 8 a.m.–8 p.m. (Thurs.), 7 a.m.–9 p.m. (Fri.), 8 a.m.–9 p.m. (Sat.)