Dupuy's Oyster Shop
108 South Main Street - Abbeville LA 70510
Phone: (337) 893-2336

Abbeville has always had two or three seafood restaurants. Two of these were located across the street from each other...Dupuy's Oyster Shop and Black's Restaurant. For many years, Blacks was the more popular restaurant in town, but Blacks failed on three different occasions with three different managements (the locals claim that it was built on cocaine and went down on cocaine).

Dupuy's crab cakes, with lots of crabmeat and topped with a delicious crawfish sauce, are among the best in the area. The Po-Boy's are the best in town, if not the area, and can be ordered either full size or half size or as a half and half (two ingredient choices). The seafood gumbo is not always consistent...some days tasting like it had been on the stove too long. The oysters on the half-shell (in season) are usually good, but on slower days, the oysters are shucked ahead of time and stored in a refrigerator until served, causing them to dehydrate somewhat. On busy nights, after the refrigerator stock has been served, the oysters are served freshly opened. Unfortunately for those who prefer to eat at bars rather than tables, the management is known to refuse to serve food at the bar when they are busy. Dupuy's serves margarine instead of butter with your bread and baked potato, unlike the Waffle House which serves real butter.

The daily specials, in most cases, are well prepared, however there is very little diversity or changes in the menu. The special on Wednesday nights is all the catfish you can eat for a fixed price. The place is usually mobbed on that night and the scene reminds me of the title of Ariana Huffington's book, "Pigs at the Trough."

The owners are occasionally visible, but most of the staff is very friendly and experienced (with only one or two duds on duty at the same time). Their managers are overly friendly (almost to point of being a nuisance). One of the managers greets the customers in her high-pitched baby-talk voice, which after a while, can grate on you like a fingernail across an old blackboard.

UPDATE - 12 August 2011: This past week, the owners had the restaurant painted a baby blue and white, which would be more appropriate for a children's nursery rather than a restaurant in an historic downtown district. The management opened a banquet room that is seldom used as compared to the Riverfront Restaurant, their competition across the river. When they originally opened the banquet room, the woodwork outside the new facade was a beautiful stained wood that has now been painted over with white paint and looks awful. Let's hope they didn't repaint the inside as well.