Restaurants scrounge for crawfish

Cafe Rue Orleans owner Maudie Schmitt will put in a call today for about 800 pounds of crawfish. That’s about 200 pounds less than she can realistically sell this weekend at the Fayetteville restaurant, but likely a larger order than her supplier can accommodate.

“We should be up to 1,000 pounds or more pretty easily by now,” Schmitt said. “We just can’t get that much. We get what we get.”

Restaurant owners and event planners across the South are finding it more challenging than usual to secure crawfish this year after an unusually cold winter.

Crawfish prefer water temperatures between 65 and 85degrees, according to industry experts. When conditions are less than ideal, the freshwater crustaceans burrow farther into mud for protection. Hiding in the mud keeps them warm, but also hampers their development, meaning customers are finding the few crawfish on their plates might also be smaller than in years past.

Ideally, experts said, crawfish season runs about three months - from mid-February through mid-May, although sometimes it extends into June. Low temperatures have delayed crawfish season by more than two months, said Lisa Marshall, who owns Floyd’s Meat & Seafood in Sherwood, a business her father started in 1978.

However, the late start doesn’t mean the season will be extended, Marshall said.

The majority of crawfish she buys come from rice farmers who raise the crawfish in ponds on their farms during the off season, she said. But around Memorial Day, the rice farmers drain the ponds, clean them out and begin planting rice, Marshall said.

In recent weeks, warmer weather in south Louisiana, where Marshall buys from, “has really kicked [the crawfish] into gear,” said Marshall, who sells more than 5,000 pounds of crawfish a weekend. “They’re starting to come in now really, really good.”

In the next few weeks, the demand for crawfish will be “sky high,” Marshall said.

Hylle Crawfish Farms has been operating in Coldwater, a northeast Arkansas township near the St. Francis River, for the past 12 years. Conditions for harvesting “mudbugs” this year are as bad as Kay Hylle can remember, she said.

Normally, the operation is running “full speed” by early to mid-April and can require as many as 12 people working on jobs including harvesting, cleaning and taking orders. This year, the family-run business hasn’t needed to use all that manpower, Hylle said.

“We’re pretty limited right now because of the cold,” said Hylle, whose family runs the crawfish farm as a supplement to its rice, soybeans, corn and milo crops.

Those limitations are being passed down to the buyers: Restaurants are paying much more than usual to secure a supply.

Mike Lestingi, director of operations for the Flying Fish, a Dallas-based chain with locations in Little Rock and Bentonville, said the restaurant is paying more than $1 more per pound than it did a year ago. At the start of the season, the price was closer to $2 more per pound.

Paying a premium is worth it, he said. Customers expect crawfish to be available this time of year.

“When you don’t have it, they freak out,” Lestingi said.

Securing crawfish is especially important for organizers of the Ragin’ Cajun Bash, an annual fundraiser for CARTI, formerly known as the Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute. This year’s event is sold out and will be held Thursday night in Little Rock.

Despite higher prices and limited supply, Leslie Gordy, special-events coordinator for the CARTI Foundation, said there will be plenty of crawfish thanks to the organization’s relationship with its supplier.

“We have a farmer in south Louisiana we have been working with for several years,” Gordy said. “Our fundraiser on Thursday is his No. 1 priority. We probably will have close to 5,500 pounds of crawfish on Thursday.”