The smell of BOIL Seafood House’s boiled crawfish could be smelled blocks away from the Magazine Street restaurant.  With the beginning of crawfish season doing better than last year, some seafood experts say prices are low and sales are high.

“Prices are better maybe because it’s the beginning of the season, it’s a lot of crawfish all around, so they are producing more right now and later in the season they will slow up,” Thomas Brasley, BOIL Seafood House Chef said.

According Brasley the season is off to a great start, partially because the weather this year is in more suitable condition for the production of crawfish compared to last year.

“The weather, whether it’s cold or hot, we rather it to be hot because they grow a little faster and they’re much bigger in size and when it’s cold the crawfish are usually really small. Most people do not like to buy them really small,” Brasley said.

Right now prices are being considered reasonable, according to Chef Brasley, he says one pound of crawfish can run individuals a few dollars.

“Here a pound would be about $6.99, which is good for what we do with the crawfish, locally you can buy crawfish for $4.99 or $3.99,” Brasley explained.

BOIL Seafood House employees Micah Lee says he has not been working at the restaurant for long, but he has already seen an increase in the demand for the red mudbugs.

“A lot of people come from out of town, we even had people from China and the Carribean come to try (crawfish),” Lee expressed.

For customer Bria Jackson she says she loves crawfish and usually when she goes out to buy the crawfish she can’t help but get a few pounds.

“I am a New Orleans native, one pound of crawfish is not enough, I usually get at least 3 pounds. On a scale of one to ten, I give BOIL Seafood House’s crawfish a ten,” Jackson said.

With Lent just around the corner, Brasley he sees more business pick up during that time.

“It is a traditional thing, we definitely see business pick up during that time because it’s (Lent) traditions,” said Brasley.