William “Bill” Spahr and his wife Thelma opened a bar and a service station on Highway 90 in Des Allemands in the spring of 1968, and the kitchen was almost beside the point.
Travelers pulling off that stretch of bayou highway needed gas, a cold drink, and something to eat. The Spahrs cooked what the surrounding water gave them, and word moved the way it does in small fishing communities. Demand for local seafood outgrew the service station, and the operation turned into a full restaurant built on what the bayou produced.
Three things made the name. The first is the catfish chips, which are local wild-caught catfish sliced thin and fried until the edges crisp. They arrive as a plate or in smaller cuts, and they are what most people drive out for. The second is the gumbo, still made from Thelma and Bill’s original recipe with shrimp, crab, and sausage. The third is a Bloody Mary the bar builds from scratch instead of pouring from a bottle.
Then a kitchen fire took the building in November 2002. The family opened Spahr’s Downtown in Thibodaux the following year, added breakfast to that menu, and turned it into a daily gathering spot. In 2006 they rebuilt in Des Allemands on the exact slab where the original had stood. That detail is worth carrying into the parking lot, because the restaurant you walk into is twenty years old and the address behind it is fifty-eight.
The rebuild bought them the view. Windows and outdoor seating open onto Bayou Des Allemands, and alligators work the water close enough that staff have been known to feed one when a table asks. Anyone who has eaten a windowless meal in the French Quarter will understand what that changes about an afternoon.
The menu reaches past the catfish. Fried Gulf oysters, popcorn shrimp, butterflied shrimp, and crawfish tails fill out the fryer side, and platters stack several of those together with onion sticks and hush puppies. Two handmade crabcakes come under the house Craw Sauce. Crawfish tails get sautéed into fettuccine with a pepper jack cream sauce. There is a fried green tomato salad topped with boiled Gulf shrimp and remoulade, and a shrimp and crab salad built on Cajun-spiced artichoke hearts. Anyone avoiding the fryer can order the catfish grilled.
The family still runs it. Third and fourth generations of Spahrs work alongside lifelong friends and the local fishermen who supply the kitchen, which is the reason the seafood tastes like it came from a few miles up the road.
Two other locations serve down the bayou. Spahr’s Downtown anchors the middle of Thibodaux and opens early enough for a Bourgeois omelette and pain perdu. Spahr’s at the Station opened in Galliano in 2016 to reach the lower Lafourche communities, serving all three meals.
The original sits at 3682 Highway 90 East and takes reservations at (985) 758-1602. Listed hours run 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. most days with later closings Friday and Saturday, though some listings show an 11 a.m. opening, so call before planning an early lunch. Takeout and delivery are both available, and the restaurant adds a small surcharge on credit card orders.
The drive southwest from New Orleans takes about half an hour, which is exactly enough distance to leave the tourist menus behind. Order the chips, get the gumbo, and take a table where you can watch the water.
