Providing Austinites with a homestyle crawfish boil experience was one of the goals of Crawfish Shack & Oyster Bar owner Hiep Nguyen when he first opened the restaurant in 2007.

Nguyen, who grew up in Rockport, Texas, and has lived in Austin for more than 20 years, said he has always loved to eat crawfish with his family.

“We used to go shrimping and crabbing,” he said, adding he loved to cook as well.

His brother, a seafood distributor, was already providing wholesale seafood for other local eateries, he said.

“There was no restaurant in town that made a homestyle crawfish like we [would make at] a crawfish boil at home,” he said.

The first location, on Wells Branch Parkway in the Northwest Austin area, opened in 2007. In February 2014 the company expanded by opening its Southpark Meadows location near the Grove.

“We were getting a lot of customers from down south who would come all the time [to the north location],” he said.

The south location is larger than the north restaurant and has a full bar as well as patio seating.