With a motto of “Get Your Hands Dirty,” the Red Hook Cajun Seafood & Bar has opened at 6105 Stage Road in Bartlett and is already eyeing expansion to other parts of the Mid-South.

The concept will be growing quickly to Midtown for its second location, and a third Red Hook is planned for the near future.

“Places in Georgia and Florida are doing really well with this kind of concept,” co-owner Joe Ng said.“So we’re picking up the trend, and I think we’re going to do well here in the Memphis area.”

The restaurant’s design features a nautical theme, with an aquarium, fish nets and various sea creatures. Entrees are served in the bag in which they're boiled, with options including blue crab, shrimp, snow crab legs, king crab legs, crawfish, clams, green and black mussels, lobster tails and Dungeness crab. Customers choose from Cajun, lemon pepper, garlic butter or the Juicy Special seasonings.

“No one has our house recipe in Memphis or anywhere else,” said Red Hook front-of-house manager Cesar Islas, who formerly worked with Railgarten in Midtown as well as Downtown’s Las Margaritas. “We use similar Cajun seasonings and ingredients like other seafood restaurants in Louisiana and Florida.”

Baskets with fried tilapia, shrimp, catfish, oysters and chicken are also available, along with appetizers like raw and steamed oysters, calamari and hush puppies. Daily specials and a lunch menu are also offered.

“The oysters and other live seafood we get fresh from the Gulf of Mexico,” Islas said. “That’s why people love it.”

Red Hook’s building in Bartlett was formerly the Grand Pacific Buffet, which moved down the street to a larger space at 6196 Stage Road. It has been home to many restaurants over the past 30-plus years, including Ryan’s buffet and others.

For the new concept, the interior has been remodeled, including the construction of a new bar in the center of the space. The work took eight months to complete.

“Red Hook is one of the newest additions to Bartlett’s gastronomic diversity, and it’s a different experience than most other seafood restaurants in this region,” Bartlett Area Chamber of Commerce President John Threadgill said. “It’s really like being on the Gulf Coast.”

The restaurant is waiting on its liquor license and expects to have a full bar menu available by mid-July. Along with a variety of domestic and import beers on draft and in bottles, libations will include wine, frozen creations and 12 signature drinks created by Islas, a former bartender. Those will include the Cajun Bloody Mary, Dirty Cajun Martini, Gator Blood and Ginger Mule.

“Our wine list will help customers to know which menu items match up well with particular wines, so they can enjoy the food more,” Islas said. “Once we have the liquor license, we will start with happy hour from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. with some 2-for-1 beers and cheaper pitchers.”

The opening of Red Hook brought 35 new jobs to the community, and Islas expects to hire more bartenders and servers as business continues to ramp up.

Social media has played a big role already in spreading the word about Red Hook, and Islas plans to continue to use it as a tool for growth.

Along with Tony Zheng, Jacky Chen and his brother Roy, Ng owns several restaurants across the Mid-South including the Urban Fusion & Asian Bistros in Germantown and Southaven.

The owners are scouting locations for their third Red Hook, with East Memphis, Southaven and Cordova on the short list, according to Ng.

He hopes the Midtown location, in the former Tennessee Taco Company space at at 3295 Poplar Ave., will be open in the next few months.