The Ultimate Gulf Coast Seafood Crawl

Dirty Al’s

South Padre Island

It’s hard to decide what’s most charming about this restaurant near the southernmost tip of South Padre Island—the friendly service, the marina setting, or the delightfully crude murals of mahi-mahi and mermaids and, above the entrance, Alfonso “Dirty Al” Salazar himself, astride a bucking marlin, schooner of beer in hand. Far from the touristy spots that seduce the sun-addled hordes with neon-colored cocktails and fresh-from-the-freezer fare, Dirty Al’s, which opened as a bait shop in 1986, serves locally caught seafood, grilled, blackened, or fried. Families, in-the-know tourists, and local teenagers gather around plastic tables on the porch or inside a dining room festooned with nautical oil paintings, rods and reels, taxidermied fish, and all the other flotsam and jetsam a joint like this accumulates over nearly four decades. 

King’s Inn

Riviera

Follow the signs for Loyola Beach and you’ll come upon a weathered gray building situated on a finger of Baffin Bay, about an hour south of Corpus. Swallows dart among its eaves, and cats seek shade beneath the many pickup trucks parked outside. At the entrance a sign kindly asks gentlemen to remove their hats. What began as a fishing pier in the thirties is a bucket list restaurant that feels part fish camp, part church fellowship hall. Ask for a menu and you’ll immediately be pegged as an out-of-towner. Start with a fresh avocado salad, then choose among offerings such as fried or “U-Peel” shrimp, drum, catfish, or orange roughy (broiled or fried in a barely there crust dusted in salt and pepper). A thick, spicy house-made tartar sauce comes alongside.

Snoopy’s Pier

Corpus Christi

A looping exit off the causeway leads to a marshy island that seems ready to be reclaimed by the Laguna Madre at any minute. In other words, a visit to Snoopy’s feels serendipitous. May they never change the welcome sign featuring a hand-painted shrimp outfitted in a cowboy hat, bib, and single boot. The 44-year local (and tourist) favorite has managed to escape the curse of “great view, terrible food” that often befalls waterfront spots. Order your deviled crab or broiled redfish (add the sautéed shrimp and artichokes), grab a salt-and-lime-dressed beer at the bar, head out to the waterfront porch (don’t step on the dogs), and watch the fishing boats motor by. 

Indianola Fishing Marina

Indianola

A spit of land about an hour and a half northeast of Corpus, Indianola has been blown away by hurricanes one too many times. Yet life—anglers inside teetering shacks, alligators trawling the sloughs—hangs on. At the heart of this Terlingua of the Gulf Coast sits Indianola Fishing Marina, home to a bait shop and RV park, in addition to the restaurant. Burgers, fish tacos, and baskets of cornmeal-battered shrimp are on the menu, and Saturdays bring shrimp boils or all-you-can-eat catfish. The historic outpost feels like the kind of place where you could kick back all day, drinking beer and watching kids attempt to fish Powderhorn Bayou from the concrete dock as they brave wind-borne waves and hungry dolphins. 

Stingaree

Crystal Beach

A big dirt lot packed with motorcycles, pickups, and a horse trailer here and there indicate that you’ve come to the right place. On the Bolivar Peninsula, this family-owned spot, which opened in 1986, is housed in a butter-yellow building with big wooden decks overlooking Goat Island and East Galveston Bay. Inside the airy dining room you’ll find traveling RVers and boisterous parties of twelve drinking frozen piña coladas and Stingaritas (the house margs) and tearing into generous platters of fried seafood, bowls of appropriately murky gumbo, and piles of boiled crabs. Try to get a seat outside or near the screened windows so you can watch opportunistic seagulls fish the roiling wakes left by slow-moving barges.

This article originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “The Ultimate Gulf Coast Seafood Crawl.” Subscribe today.