Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Danielle Mahon. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Danielle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I had a 25 year career in corporate America with the last 12 years in Life Science sales. I would describe myself as someone who always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I have always looked at ideas through the lens of “oh I wonder if that could be a business” With Topsail Steamer the timing was right ( I was just becoming an empty nester) and I had the support of my family so I decided to take the leap and begin by entrepreneurial journey at age 48.

I grew up in New Jersey and some of my most treasured memories were getting together with family and friends “down the shore” and enjoying steamed seafood feasts, spreading out the brown paper, dumping it out on the table, peeling shrimp, picking crabs and having fun! My father was an entrepreneur and because of his influence I always looked at ideas through that lens. I decided to go “all in” on the idea of Topsail Steamer, took the jump and opened my first location in 2017.

The idea for Topsail Steamer came about on a girls trip that I was on with my Mom and my sister to the Outer Banks, North Carolina. We were in a full service restaurant having lunch, and I noticed that there was a stream of people coming in and going to a takeout counter. This restaurant was making low country boils in the old black and white enamel steam pots for customers to come in pick up, take home, cook at home and then bring the pot back the next day. For me this is really when the lightbulb went off that this could be a business all on its own. A business without a full-service restaurant or a seafood market. And that is when I started to develop the business for Topsail Steamer, which was in March 2016. I opened the doors to the first store in March 2017. For me it wasn’t only the idea of having or offering a great seafood meal to take home and prepare at home, but was also being able to offer the experience of a seafood steam pot, where you gather around with friends and family, spread out the brown paper, dump out the seafood, and just spend time together around a great meal having a lot of fun.

Danielle, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Think about that feeling you get when your family gathers around for a meal while on vacation. The laughs, the stories, enjoying great food together, and spending EXTRA time around the table while on vacation. With Topsail Steamer, you don’t have to be on vacation or at the beach to get that experience.

We offer our signature Bay Buckets in single-use pots, jam-packed with a variety of fresh seafood, andouille sausage, sweet corn, red bliss potatoes, and a proprietary blend of seasonings to take home, steam, and eat.

Now, cooking seafood can feel a little daunting to some, but it could not be any simpler with our buckets. You just add 2 cups of water (or beer) to steam at home, on the beach, or anywhere you have a grill or burner using our easy instructions.

In 40 minutes you have a mouth-watering seafood feast to spread out on the table to enjoy.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2018 we had 2 locations open on the NC coast and we were hit with Hurricane Florence. There was extensive impact to both areas that would dramatically effect our business for at least 2 years. It was at this time I knew I had to come up with a way stay in business. I knew our customers could not get to us, so I developed a way to ship our pots to them.
We started shipping in Q1 of 2019 and shipped 300 buckets that year. In 2020 I applied to Goldbelly and started to partner with them in March of 2020 (right before the world shutdown). Needless to say the timing for this was perfect and we saw a dramatic increase in demand during COVID. This year we shipped over 7,000 seafood pots across all 50 states.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

Yes, we sell on Golbelly and it has been a great partnership. For a small business, they provide the resources that you need to be able to have the opportunity to scale your ecommerce. Resources like customer service teams, logistics, marketing. We provide wholesale pricing so we are able to protect our margins and have the ability to ship nationwide.

With our Shark Tank appearance in October, they were such an important resource for us being able to handle all of the increased exposure and order volume.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.topsailsteamer.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/topsailsteamer.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/topsailsteamer
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemahon-961b4a11/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/topsail-steamer-surf-city

Image Credits

Megan Morales