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This picture stood in Kenneth Helmer's first restaurant in Louisiana and is among the surviving remnants after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the establishment in Columbus, Miss. From his deep bayou-based drawl to the varying fishing accessories coating the walls of the Louisiana Shrimp Shack, owner Kenneth Helmer is as genuine as it gets.(Ben Portnoy/The Commercial Dispatch via AP) lessThis picture stood in Kenneth Helmer's first restaurant in Louisiana and is among the surviving remnants after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the establishment in Columbus, Miss. From his deep bayou-based drawl to ... morePhoto: Ben Portnoy, AP
COLUMBUS, Miss. (AP) — From his deep bayou-based drawl to the varying fishing accessories coating the walls of the Louisiana Shrimp Shack, owner Kenneth Helmer is as genuine as it gets.
A commercial fisherman by trade, he opened the restaurant in its current location earlier this spring as an attempt to bring an authentic Louisiana seafood restaurant to Columbus. Today, it serves as a reminder of his past, and the hopes of endearing cooking he learned from his mother to the community at large.
“I guess it helps out too, you know, when you’re selling seafood ...,” Helmer said of his accent adding to the authenticity of the restaurant and his food.
After a hunting trip with longtime girlfriend Kelley Evans in Alabama, the pair passed through the area on the way back to southern Louisiana. Noticing a need for authentic Cajun food and fish, Helmer opened a smaller version of what now stands as the Louisiana Shrimp Shack just up the road near the Columbus Walmart. But as the demand for po boys and other varying Cajun dishes outpaced capabilities of the initial restaurant, the current location was opened this spring.
His first ever restaurant, though, was back home.
A painting of a fishing boat pulling up to a Bayou-bound general store sits prominently in the center of the current establishment’s dining room. With a callused left hand, Helmer points to about chest height, just below the bottom of the piece, to indicate where the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 reached in his previous restaurant, forcing it to close in the aftermath.
“When it hit, it pushed a lot of water, drowned a lot of people,” Helmer said solemnly. “Killed kids, older people, Black, white. People (were) floating, hanging in the trees.
“I put (the picture) in my attic in my shed at home and I still had it,” he continued. “So when I opened this place I brought it back up.”
That Helmer has gotten into the seafood business is a relatively natural progression. At 58 years old, he’s spent more than five decades fishing and more than 40 years working on commercial fishing vessels in some shape or form.
Raised in the bayou town of Barataria, Louisiana, the ocean, boating and fishing were a way of life for Helmer and his family. The town is small, just 15 miles long and home to a meager 979 people. Famed pirate Jean Laffitte even used the area and surrounding waters as a pirate cove to pick off passing Spanish merchant ships during the early 19th century.
From the time he was a boy, Helmer’s mother, Barbara Stanley, schooled him in Cajun cuisine. From gumbo and jambalaya to varying concoctions of shrimp, crawfish and catfish, he gained a larger appreciation for the food of his family and its past.
After his first restaurant folded in the wake of Katrina, he planned out the spot in Columbus in recent years. Helmer estimates he and his team were tasked with making about 200 sandwiches per day. They garnered so much attention for their delectable po boys dressed with shrimp and crawfish straight from the bayous surrounding Barataria, even employees at the Subway around the corner poked in to learn their tricks.
”(Mom) told us back then, which I should’ve listened to a little closer, ‘Y’all better learn how to cook. One day you’re going to be on your own and you’re gonna need this,’” Helmer said. “I wish I’d have learned more from her.”
At present, the operation is small. Only Helmer, Evans, cousin Joey Alexie and one other employee currently work in the space. However, the demand has continued in the new shop.
Once per week, Alexie drives down to the bayou and picks up whatever shrimp and oysters are needed in a given week. The store gets its catfish from a distributor in Macon. The process is tedious and pricy, but it falls in line with Helmer’s deep desire to fill his restaurant with domestic seafood.
“I do not fool with foreign seafood at all,” he explains passionately. “Strictly against it.”
With the pandemic continuing to rage, Helmer has used the time to refurbish his building. With the help of Alexie, the pair gutted the space and replaced it with floor-to-ceiling hardwood and decorated the walls with Louisiana paraphernalia and hunting trophies.
Having been stalled in opening their dining room, which Helmer is adamant he won’t open until the coronavirus is controlled, a to-go window was built in. Helmer and Alexie also recently constructed a covered patio complete with picnic tables with designs ranging from fleur-de-lys to an LSU logo -- though Helmer is quick to note Mississippi State and Alabama-themed tables are in the works.
Around 4:45 p.m., customers begin to flow toward the pickup window.
“It’s about that time,” Helmer says. Evans and Alexie nod in concurrence.
Like the general store depicted in the painting hanging in the center of the restaurant, Helmer hopes the cars passing by, too, will spill into the restaurant for a taste of authentic bayou-caught seafood. And while the food backs up Helmer and his team’s hopes, his Louisianan drawl, at the least, serves as a reminder for customers of the origins of their delectable dishes.
The Link LonkNovember 29, 2020 at 12:04PM
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Louisiana Shrimp Shack owner brings cuisine to Columbus - The Ridgefield Press
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