A new family-owned restaurant centered on Cajun cuisine is opening in Arlington: Called Beaux Boudin, it'll be a takeout-only place specializing in boudin sausage, plus Cajun and Creole dishes, and is opening in late March at 1821 S. Fielder Rd., in the former Fork in the Road, a nearly decade-old cafe that closed in 2022.

Beaux Boudin comes from husband-and-wife team Jeffery and Melissa Crump, who've been selling Cajun dishes at farmers markets in Fort Worth, Carrollton, Keller, and Grand Prairie for the past four years.

In 2023, the two decided to leave their day jobs — he was a software engineer, she was the program manager at the Women’s Center of Tarrant County — to open a brick-and-mortar.

“We feel like this is the right time,” Jeffery says. “We’ve made a name for ourselves by working the farmers markets, so in a way, we’re not exactly starting from scratch. Time after time, our customers would say, 'When are you going to open a brick-and-mortar?'"

Their centerpiece is boudin sausage, a specialty sausage made with rice, pork liver, onion, and bell pepper. Jeffery developed the recipe based on a recipe from his grandmother, a native of Eunice, Louisiana.

“I call it the hidden gem of American cuisine,” Jeffery says. “It’s such a good-tasting, profound dish that hits all of our dietary needs — proteins, carbs, and veggies. It’s been relegated mainly to Southern Louisiana, but it has a long history in America that goes back to the French settlers. It’s a uniquely American dish.”

The sausage will be served in a variety of ways:

• By the link, in two flavors, regular or spicy
• In breaded and fried boudin balls, with or without pepper jack cheese
• A patty melt sandwich on Texas toast, with American cheese and remoulade
• Street tacos, with repollo slaw, pepper jack cheese, and remoulade, on flour tortillas

Other menu items include jambalaya, chicken & sausage gumbo, and seafood gumbo. The latter is another of the restaurant's star dishes, made with crab, Gulf shrimp, Andouille sausage, and okra, and a special roux.

“We’re really proud of the seafood gumbo,” Jeffery says. “We make it with a dark roux with a white wine stock, which gives it a rich, complex flavor.”

Making their stocks and gumbos is a laborious task that takes days, Melissa says. “We’re closed Monday and Tuesday, but we’ll be here making the stocks and gumbo,” she says. “It’s a two-day process.”

Jeffery and Melissa's paths first crossed in the 1990s while they were students at G.W. Carver High School in Houston, where they grew up. Despite going their separate ways after graduating, they met again years later and fell in love and married.

Over the years, two of Melissa’s family members have become involved in the couple’s food endeavors and are now head cooks at the restaurant.

Her son, Aiden Aguirre, has been helping the couple cook since he was 11, Melissa says. He’s now a senior at L.D. Bell, where he’s enrolled in the Buinger Career & Technical Education Academy’s culinary arts program. After he graduates this spring, Melissa says, he’s heading to Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island, where he’ll continue to study culinary arts.

Aguirre will share cooking duties with Melissa’s sister, Cindy Hernandez, who helped develop the recipe for the restaurant’s boudin tacos.

“Our dad said, `You can put anything on tacos, so put the boudin on them,’” Melissa says. “At first we weren’t sure if it would work. But Cindy came up with a great recipe for a repollo slaw, which is sort of like pico de gallo but with cabbage, and our dad was right, it worked.”

When they open, they'll initially accept walk-in orders only, then launch online ordering a few weeks later on their website and third-party apps such as Uber Eats and Door Dash.

“We do want to take things slow at first,” Jeffery says. “I’d rather start out small and then grow as we go along.”