Cajun News
True Cajun restaurant Cocodrie's to open in North Richland Hills
Hush Puppies
A new Cajun seafood concept is coming soon to North Richland Hills: Called Cocodrie’s Bayou Kitchen, it’s at 5209 Rufe Snow Dr. in the former Rock & Tacos taco shop, which closed in December. According to owner Jesse Gibson, it's on track to open in September.
Gibson is a transplant from Louisiana who’s been involved in a number of local Cajun restaurants, and whose family works in the fishing and shrimp distribution industry.
In 2017, he opened The Wild Cajun, a mobile seafood business in North Richland Hills. "Cocodrie’s lets us feature what we do with The Wild Cajun in a restaurant setting,” Gibson says. (He also helped found Terrebonnes, another Cajun restaurant, in Fort Worth, but he’s no longer involved.)
Cocodrie's is his newest venture, influenced by a fishing village in the south of Louisiana called Cocodrie.
“Cocodrie — meaning “alligator” in French — is where folks go to unwind, a place of camps, crawfish boils, and fishing trips,” Gibson says. “Cocodrie’s Bayou Kitchen celebrates the culture, community, and coastal flavors that define our home.”
They’ll serve items such as shrimp and oyster po'boys, boudin balls and eggrolls, smoked redfish, and seafood boils. Gator will also have a heavy presence on the menu from gator po’boys to baskets.
The restaurant will be counter service, similar to Torchy's Tacos or Bayou Cat in Arlington, where customers place orders at the counter and retrieve their food when it’s ready.
The restaurant will have a full bar and eventually a speakeasy. There will be a specialty store inside as well, selling products that Gibson says are hard to come by outside of Louisiana, including seasonings, jambalaya mix, gumbo mix, and etouffee.
"'Cajun' is an overused term," Gibson says. "A lot of people think it’s spicy food, but it’s so much more than that. I want to emphasize more of the culture, where we’re from and how we do things outside the food itself.”
