Sunday, October 28, 2012

Crestline Seafood Company CLOSED

In May 2011 Crestline Seafood which was escalating in popularity, winning awards for their gumbo in 2010 and beginning to have Friday night lines for a table CLOSED.

The BP oil spill brought sales to a screeching halt, with our Mt. Brook Alabama customers expecting fresh shipments from the coast of Panama City and Bayou La Batre each day.  Prices of raw oysters the weeks following the BP oil spill rose from $37 to $96 for a GALLON.  Gumbo was cost prohibitive. The cost of shrimp doubled and our customers became concerned about the health risks of seafood.

In an effort to keep the doors open, my husband, the owner, Chad Adams, quickly switched gears towards a BEACH BURGERS theme in anticipation that the spill would be cleaned up and the gulf waters would get back to normal.

That never happened and also during the stress of the situation, the energizer bunny I once knew became stressed and frustrated. His blood pressure following the spill spiked to 240 over 190, much of that while on the phone for a hundredth time explaining the scenario to yet another person who had been assigned his CASE.

Anyone who visits the gulf coast even today knows that tar balls continue to dot the beaches, full crews as late as August of 2012 still comb the beaches in the early hours to "pick up items that need investigation".

We can never know what the spill meant for our beaches, our wildlife, or the waters we swam in just shortly after the "coast was to be clear" of danger.

For Crestline Seafood Company it meant the end of a dream. It meant the end to fresh seafood being delivered to our neighborhood, cooked the next day off the boat into our ice cases, grilled, blackened, or who will forget those shrimp and grits that we still struggle to find a substitute for.

Chad has moved on from the Seafood Business (he had moved from Gulf Shores with the dream to start up a little restaurant like the ones he loved there).

He works with SouthPoint Mortgage.  After all, his business prior to CHEF was as a CPA.

If you need a mortgage, and a bit of qualified experience to turn your credit around call him!
His desk number is 205-503-5020.

I am sure he would be happy to hear from you!  And he will save you some money too! Almost every person who has shopped him after another quote has found his rates better.

As for the oil spill.  Birmingham was outside of the radius for eligible claims. He didn't want to sue so kept pursuing reimbursement and lost wages for a failed business DIRECTLY LINKED (and documented as a CPA would document those claims) to the BP CRISIS to find that even as I type this on October 29 2012, his file has moved from Gulf Shores to Washington DC, back to Mobile, Alabama and now is beginning proceedings with a lawyer over TWO AND A HALF YEARS later.

THOSE ADS SAYING BP MAKES RIGHT are a joke.  We have so many we know who never were compensated for claims that were legitimate.

Unfortunately now as you might have seen on recent ads, ANYONE might get a piece of BP if they file, and still those who tried to go through the proper channels remain unpaid.

I will personally never trust BP or their representatives. As a person who once lived ON the GULF with the ocean as my back yard, I still experience tar balls and oily sheens after the storms. They can tell me all they want how safe it is.  I am NOT buying IT or BP products.

Allison Adams