We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Terrence & Daisey Shields a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Terrence & Daisey, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
The biggest challenge to profitability in the seafood business is knowing how to do price comparison and having more than one supplier. Knowing how to portion your product as well as knowing what percentage you should be at for food cost can help out tremendoiusly. Most importantly is know how to price your product and staying within that 30% price range. Knowing your season is critical as well that way you can schedule staff accordingly and you might have to adjust your opening and closing times to accomendate your slow seasons vs your busy seasons.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
We moved to Texas 7 years ago from South Georgia. Terrence is from Douglas, Ga and I’m from Waycross, Ga. We have a son, Quantavious Shields, that attend school at Miles College in Fairfield, AL. We have a long history of cooking as well as a love for seafood. We love to cook and feed people and I guess you can say we get a great sense of enjoyment knowing that our food makes people happy. We started selling seafood in the DFW area back in 2018 out of our home and then I started taking orders at my previous job until eventually Terrence found us a spot inside of a Shell Gas Station. He had this little catch phrase he would say “Just like the crab we are located inside the Shell”. We worked that corner for a year until our lease was up and we stumbled upon a new location that is now our new home February 2020. We take pride in our building; our company name DA CRAB TRAP and we have great joy in introducing customers to how we cook down in South Georgia.
We would like to let any potential customers, followers or fans know that all crabs aren’t cooked the same so when they come to Da Crab Trap, we ask that you be patient because we cooked to order so your food is fresh. We do a low country seafood boil therefore everything is cooked separate therefore everything has its own taste. We make our own seasoning and that is what set us apart from other seafood restaurants. We offer delivery service through Uber Eats and Door dash.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Social media has been our best source for new clients/customers. Terrence works Facebook daily and because of that our algorithm is off the charts. Our followers love when he goes live, and the picture of our food is amazing. We also went viral on TikTok, we use Instagram too. The key is to post, post, post and post some more.
How’d you meet your business partner?
Terrence use to work with my older sister Ruby and she would talk about this guy who rapped and gave her some tickets to their 4th of July show. No, I didn’t go but I happen to see him out of town and then I saw him again that same night a local area. I believe the third time I saw him I asked him was his name Terrence and let’s just say we have been together since then. Isn’t funny how God works.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dacrabtrap.com
- Instagram: @dacrabtrap.official
- Facebook: @dacrabtrapp
- Twitter: @DaCrabTrap1
Image Credits
Da Crab Trap