Morgan Monk likes seafood, but not finding what she wanted in Pine Bluff, she routinely had to travel to Little Rock and beyond to get her fix. That predicament led to a family meeting and a decision.
"I thought we were onto something," she said. "And I said, 'I think we can do this. I'm sure we can do this.' And we're doing it!"
The result of that enthusiasm was Underwater Seafood, a restaurant at Ninth Avenue and Cherry Street. That was 18 months ago, and the success of that establishment has now led to what will be a new, full-blown restaurant location at 1400 S. Main St. in what was originally a Long John Silver's restaurant.
And making it go is Morgan Monk, just shy of 25, and her 29-year-old brother, Brandon, with help from other family members.
When the two started their restaurant they only had three entrees on the menu. One featured crab and shrimp, and the other two were variations of the same theme; all three were "boils" with corn on the cob, potatoes, hard-boiled egg, sausage and other sides. To be able to fry fish, they bought a food trailer, and now the Monks have 24 different entrees. The popularity of the restaurant has been a surprise to the brother-sister team.
"To be honest, I didn't expect to be here this fast," Brandon said, standing in the under-construction building on Main Street.
"I would never have thought we'd be doing this," Morgan said.
The two were busy before they got caught up in the restaurant business. Brandon graduated from Watson Chapel High School and went on to get a business and marketing degree from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He has sold cars, been a package-delivery driver and taught school. The idea of giving up a day job and relying on an income from a restaurant was scary at first -- and hard.
"Running a business is not easy," he said. "In a business, there's a certain amount of energy that is needed every day, a certain amount of commitment. You might have had a great day yesterday, but what about today?"
Morgan also graduated from Watson Chapel and then went on to UAPB where she got a biology degree. Before the restaurant idea took root, she was occupied with a lip gloss business.
"I thought I'd be doing that," she said. "And I'm still doing it, but seafood has taken over."
When the Monks opened their restaurant, Brandon described it as "backing into business." As that might sound, they didn't stick their necks out too far financially in case their idea crashed. But in the year and a half they've been open, the business has fairly boomed, he said.
"We've been successful," he said. "Now we just need to bring it all together."
The restaurant business has taken some getting used to, Brandon said. Some of that was the consistency it takes to maintain such a business.
"Being able to sustain the same TLC for every single product, for every single person and do it every single day, that's probably the toughest," he said.
And there have been a few hiccups, he said.
"Food consistency was a problem in the early going," he said. "We went through a lot of vendors. But things are tremendously better now. Something as small as the sweet corn can change just a little and people will ask, 'Hey, what happened to the corn?' We've learned that everybody is different. One woman drives over from Malvern just for the boiled eggs."
Asked if he was handy in the kitchen, Brandon smiled and said yes.
"I make all the sauces every single day," he said. "I pretty much touch everything."
Morgan said she can take over for her brother if he's out but that she thinks of herself more as a "floater," making sure customers' orders are going out smoothly and that "everyone is happy."
The hard part for her, she said, is weathering the inherent ebbs and flows of running a restaurant.
"There are ups and downs," she said. "One week will be great and the next week might be down. But we're cautious and we push forward and hope for the best."
When Underwater Seafood opened, it was in the middle of the covid pandemic. The fact that they had no place to sit and only provided takeout meals didn't hurt their enterprise at first since that was the only safe way to conduct business at the time.
But as the restaurant's popularity grew and the pandemic receded, the lack of a dining room started to become a hindrance, Brandon said.
"People come from near and far to eat here," he said. "Texas, Detroit, Alabama. And they just want to sit down and have a nice meal. One family came through from Oklahoma and there's no place to sit and they had to sit in their car and eat. We just needed to expand."
The new location on Main Street, with a hoped-for opening of sometime in October, will put the restaurant on the map in a dramatic way, if for no other reason than that the graying husk of a long-closed Long John Silver's restaurant has been transformed into a showcase. The new siding is made of lightly finished solid wood slats, the roof is brightly painted and even the parking lot is getting attention.
"We didn't want to back into this one," Brandon said. "We're here. We didn't want to short stop this. We want to make this a landmark for Pine Bluff, and we are sparing no expense."
And the expense has been significant.
"It's been a total renovation," Brandon said. "New roof, both the metal part and the flat roof, new air-conditioning and heating systems, pretty much everything new in the kitchen, new duct work."
As he spoke, four trucks from a heating and air-conditioning company sat in the parking lot with a half-dozen or more workers busying themselves in various parts of the building.
"There was absolutely nothing in here that will stay except the windows and some of the floors, " Brandon said. "Before it's all said and done, we will have invested $400,000 in this. We're just hoping the good Lord has favor on us."
When finished, the restaurant, which will replace the one on Cherry Street, will be able to seat 75 people, Brandon said, adding that at some point in the future, he'd like to add a patio at the front of the restaurant where another 30 people could sit.
The restaurant's need to expand was there, but Brandon said he and his sister also wanted to make a statement in establishing their new location on Main Street.
"I've been around for almost 30 years," Brandon said. "I've seen Pine Bluff have ups and down, and it's definitely in a down period right now. We wanted something to fill this gap, and this is something we thought we could develop and manage. Our parents have spent their entire lives here, and we are committed to making it better. Hopefully, our restaurant translates into something good."
City officials are excited about the business expansion, especially because it is in such a high-visibility area on Main Street.
"I see this as a great transformation," said Chandra Griffin, executive director of the Urban Renewal Agency. "We'd love to see businesses and mixed-use development all the way from there to the courthouse."
She said such an expansion could help energize the entire area and make for a main attraction.
"This is just what Main Street needed," Griffin said.
A few months ago, another restaurant owner closed his business on Main Street, saying the city had fallen short in a number of ways of supporting small businesses. That business, she said, has been purchased by someone who also wants to put in a restaurant.
Larry Matthews, director of the Pine Bluff Economic and Community Development Department, said his office was able to help the Monks, providing them with $20,000 for assistance with the roof repairs and about $3,500 for new signage. The money comes from funds set aside for downtown infrastructure.
"We call it a forgivable loan," Matthews said. "They have to own the property for five years. And it's to help people who want to bring those old downtown buildings back to life."
Matthews called Brandon "kinda unique," saying the Monk's investment in the new enterprise was beyond what any other entrepreneur would typically spend on such a project.
"He has a very good business on Cherry Street, and he wants this to be a safe and secure place for people to go. That building needed a lot of work, but he believes in Pine Bluff, and he wanted to know that if he opens on Main Street he will have a first-class operation. He's doing a fantastic job."
Brandon Monk stands in front of what will be the new location of the Underwater Seafood restaurant that he owns with his sister, Morgan Monk. (Pine Bluff Commercial/Byron Tate)