Frisco | February 2023

DINING FEATURE

BY KAREN CHANEY

“THESE ARE THINGS WE GREW UP ON, AND WE LOVED THEM. WE SHARED THEM WITH OUR FAMILY, AND WE WANT TO SHARE THEM WITH OUR FRIENDS.” DAWN LOEWER, OWNER, MUDBUGS BAR AND GRILL

Dawn’s Bread Pudding ($9) is made from Dawn Loewer’s grandmother’s recipe.

Hoyt and Dawn Loewer opened MudBugs Bar and Grill in June 2019.

Slap Your Mama Cajun shrimp pasta ($16) is a pasta dish made from scratch. (Photos by Karen Chaney/Community Impact)

MudBugs Bar and Grill Owners of Cajun eatery in Frisco were born and raised in Louisiana H oyt and Dawn Loewer said when they opened Mud- Bugs Bar and Grill in June 2019, they spent a lot of time proving

MudBugs Bar and Grill 8075 FM 423, Ste. 120, Frisco http://mudbugsbarandgrill.com 214-494-2847 Hours: Mon.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. • Etouee: This is a Cajun stew or bisque. • Jambalaya: This nonsoupy dish consists of rice, chicken and sausage. It is eaten with a fork. • Gumbo: This is a roux-based soup. MENU GLOSSARY: The MudBugs owners provided simple descriptions of Cajun menu items. • Boudin: It looks like a sausage link and is made of spicy pork and rice. • Meat pie: This is a pastry stued with spicy meat or crawsh. It looks like an empanada.

the couple decided something had to change. They met with Hoyt’s cousin, who owns two restaurants in Louisiana, and fostered an idea for their own restaurant. Their menu is full of family recipes, and their crawsh comes from Hoyt’s family farms. Milly Mo’s Etouee is Hoyt’s mom’s recipe and named after her. Dawn’s grand- mother’s recipes for bread pudding, and shrimp and corn chowder have been real crowd pleasers, they said. “These are things we grew up on, and we loved them,” Dawn said. “We shared them with our family, and we want to share them with our friends.” The restaurant’s decor represents all things Louisiana, including nods to the jazz scene, a bead-laden chan- delier representing New Orleans,

Louisiana State University wall art and more. “We provide somewhere for people to relax; it’s not stuy,” Dawn said. “We’re your local mom- and-pop shop.” They also pointed out that they are a family-friendly restaurant. “We created something we would want to go to, where I’d want to bring my kids,” Dawn said. The couple regard themselves as very hands-on and can often be found cooking or washing dishes. “I like to get out of the kitchen, touch tables, visit with people, make sure they are taken care of and answer questions they have,” Hoyt said. “A lot of people are rst-timers and want to know how to peel crawsh.”

to their customers they are true Louisianians, and their menu was full of authentic Cajun recipes. “We’re from Jennings, outside of Lafayette. Lafayette is Cajun country; New Orleans is not,” Hoyt said. “Everything we do is roux based; people from Louisiana know that.” Before opening MudBugs, Hoyt hauled sacks of live crawsh from his family’s crawsh farms in Louisiana. Once in Texas, he would sell the crawsh to individuals and restaurants. However, the season- ality of that job left him nding odd jobs the remainder of the year. After doing that for a couple of years,

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FRISCO EDITION • FEBRUARY 2023