Water Valley Eatery, Crawdad Hole, Continues To Grow
Crawdad Hole owner Justin Showah told Water Valley Ambassadors his restaurant currently seats 60 people and is expanding. – Photo by Lucia Holloway
Water Valley Eatery, Crawdad Hole, Continues To Grow
By Lucia Holloway
Herald Contributor
WATER VALLEY – Justin Showah conducted a question and answer session during the Water Valley Ambassadors monthly meeting held Tuesday morning. Showah fielded questions about his business, The Crawdad Hole, located in the previously abandoned 1930s service station on South Main.
“If you put love in your cooking it sells,” he told the group. As a teenager he worked at his father’s Crawdad Hole restaurant near the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum, which opened in 1994. He joked he was his father’s first employee, working at the restaurant during the summer months and vacations.
This experience led to the opening of the younger Showah’s restaurant in Water Valley, which shares the same name as his dad’s restaurant in Jackson.
Showah said the support from the Water Valley community is the backbone of his business, although most weekends customers travel from Grenada, Calhoun City, Bruce, Charleston and Oxford, in addition to out-of-state diners.
The restaurant has expanded to seat 60 people and Showah told Ambassadors he is currently adding more space. Showah said his menu changes according to the availability of fresh seafood and crawfish. In addition to the seafood, his menu includes delicious tamales.
The restaurant has been featured in numerous magazines including Food & Wine Magazine and Preservation Magazine.
In 2014, the Mississippi Main Street Association awarded the business the Best Adaptive Re-Use Project.
The business employs 10 part-time employees.
Showah and his wife, Alexis Bullock Showah, are both Ole Miss graduates and have two children.
