Beaumont—If you’re looking for a snack with sight seeing around Spindletop, do we have a savory sandwich shop for you! Over in Beaumont we found Woogies with a really unique offering known as the Swamp Thing!
“You know what you’ve got when you got it,” said Dawn Moses.
“It reminds me of my wife’s cooking.” said Louisiana native, Arthur Richey.
“There’s no sandwich shop in all of Texas like this sandwich shop,” claimed Patricia Brackin.
“There’s a couple of people that don’t like it, but 99.9% do,” said Candie Rutledge.
Candie, her husband Thomas and her daughter Montana take care of hungry customers looking for a crawfish pistolette without having to get pulled into the casinos of cajun country.
“From our door to the casino is 55 minutes… It’s bad. It’s not a good thing,” said Candie.
“Normally to get a pistolette like this you have to go to… Sulfur to get one that good with that kind of bread, and I don’t have to do that no more. [It’s] right here at home,” said Dawn.
“It’s authentic Cajun food,” added Arthur.
It’s not just the pistolettes that have people raving. There’s a particular sandwich that really gets things rolling known as the Swamp Thing.
Just think of the most ridiculous roast beef sandwich you’ve ever had topped with etouffee.
Now this whole Woogie’s thing was brought on by of all things donuts. In 2008, Thomas was tired of doing drywall and Candie has been driving a bus for 11 years so they decided to switch up careers.
“He calls me one day after my route on the school bus and he says, ‘Hey, there’s a donut shop for lease in Bridge City.’ And I said, ‘And?'” continued Candie, “he said, ‘You don’t think we can make donuts?’ I said, ‘I don’t know a thing about donuts. You know something about donuts?'”
That didn’t stop Thomas from taking the plunge.
“We’re there and he says, ‘Yeah, I think we’ll take it.’ I’m standing in the background going … ‘Say no, say no!’ And that’s how we got in the donut business, just like that… I was drug tooth and nail, okay? I was drug by the hair basically to there,” said Candie.
There was a learning curve.
“Our first dozen donuts we sold had to have 15 in a box because the donuts were so little,” she explained.
Eventually they found out the fryer was good for more than just morning pastries. Turns out putting some partially baked French bread in there makes for the perfect pistolette.
Once our breads are browned they’re built into sandwiches.
The pistolette is pretty easy, you only need one thing— Etouffee.
As for the Swamp Thing, it’s a combination of mustard, cheese, jalapeno mayo, lettuce, roast beef, and etouffee.
“In one gallon of etouffee we put three pounds of crawfish,” said Candie.
That texture of the bread is like a warm donut, but not a sweet donut, a savory donut with incredible etouffee in the middle.
“It’s the same way they do the bread back home,” said Louisiana native, Arthur.
“I love Cajun food, I love the roast beef, I love … I just love food,” said Patricia.
“Everybody needs to die with good food on their stomach,” claimed Dawn.
“So I mean, the bread, it’s just the bread. Just come for the bread,” added Patricia.
“There’s not a lot of places that have these outside of Louisiana. So when you find them and they’re good, you visit often,” said Arthur.