Jolly Jack has been welcoming diners to Sea Island Shrimp House in San Antonio for more than 50 years
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Sea Island Shrimp House CEO Barclay Anthony likes to say that it’s the quality, service and price that make customers want to come back to the family-run seafood restaurant after more than 50 years.
“That’s the first thing you see when you pull up,” said Anthony. “In addition, generations of people have photographed with Jolly Jack. It’s just an amazing San Antonio landmark. “
Since 1965, a three-meter-tall lad in a striped shirt has been luring landlubbers to Sea Island’s flagship location at 322 W. Rector behind the North Star Mall. The cheerful mascot with the big fish and bare feet, known as Jolly Jack, has held its own for years, even longer than the giant cowboy boots from North Star across the street.
Jack could just as easily be another big brother to Anthony, who was born in 1967 and is the youngest of six siblings. He has been part of the Sea Island family for as long as Anthony can remember.
On ExpressNews.com: The Big Pig in San Antonio’s Southtown has a hazy history that includes the Pig Stand Restaurant and South Side Tavern
A photo of the original Sea Island Shrimp House.
Courtesy photo
Anthony said the original Jolly Jack statue was “a landmark partnership” between the founders of Sea Island – his parents Dan and Chrissy Anthony and their longtime friend and business partner, the late Henry Reed. Dan Anthony died in 2001.
Reed was originally a regular at the Manhattan Café, a downtown diner that Dan’s Greek immigrant father Tom Anthony (short for Anthonopoulous) co-founded in the early 20th century. Dan grew up helping in the Manhattan kitchen, but Reed knew him well beyond the restaurant. They were also neighbors on the West Kings Highway on the northwest side of the city.
Reed found success running a candle company and opening a gift shop. He’s always wanted to own a restaurant and loved Dan Anthony’s seafood, so he persuaded him to come on board as a business partner.
Like the Manhattan, their new restaurant would serve seafood and beef. But unlike Manhattan, it would give the seafood top billing and have a nautical theme.
After a year of research and development, Anthony and Reed decided on an outside restaurant that looked like an old fisherman’s hut, while the dining room inside the galley resembled a Spanish galleon called Pandora.
Reed then made up a mind-boggling story for how the restaurant got its mascot and name.
CEO Barclay Anthony of Sea Island Shrimp House
Courtesy photo
The story goes that the Pandora occurred on a wondrous island called Isla del Mar or Sea Island, a surf-and-lawn oasis full of oysters and shrimp and cattle. The mysterious island later disappeared into the sea, but not before the Pandora galley boy mastered the art of cooking its rich seafood and beef.
A statue was erected in honor of the galley boy. His name: Jolly Jack.
“That was definitely Henry’s idea,” said Barclay Anthony. “And my dad was … the food guy, and he had a Midas touch to recipes. Henry was the creative side of the partnership. “
According to Chrissy Anthony, Sea Island hired an artist on the city’s South Side to sculpt the concrete statue of Jolly Jack. She doesn’t remember the artist’s name, and Barclay Anthony couldn’t find any plans for the statue.
Chrissy Anthony, however, recalls Jolly Jack’s nicotine-infested smoking past. The original statue had a corn on the cob pipe, she said, and Jolly Jack’s early paraphernalia included ashtrays and matchbooks.
“We had it on everything,” she said.
Today, Jolly Jack merchandising is largely limited to the bottled Sea Island hot sauce and the occasional Fiesta medal.
In the 1970s, Reed and the Anthonys tried to expand the Jolly Jack brand with a Broadway sandwich shop named after the character.
“It just didn’t go over,” Reed told the San Antonio Light in 1986.
Even so, Jolly Jack still has the right to boast as the first whimsical sculpture in the North Star Mall area. Though the mall opened a few years before Sea Island, its iconic giant boots didn’t dug their heels into the property until 1980.
Jack almost didn’t stop to see this happen.
Chrissy Anthony recalled that Sea Island lost so much money in 1974 that she started working in the kitchen to help the ship. Then she moved on to hosting and introduced Sea Island’s signature system, where customers order their food, take a number, and then take a seat or wait for a table.
The system marked a turning point that led to the growth of Sea Island. The company stayed in the family and Barclay Anthony took over the business in 1992. By 2001 Sea Island had expanded to four locations in San Antonio and individual locations in Austin and Corpus Christi.
It was around this time that Jolly Jack had a huge twin.
In 1998, Barclay Anthony hired a few young Austin artists to create a Jolly Jack statue for Sea Island’s expansion into the state’s capital. Dana Younger and Kevin Collins couldn’t move the original statue, so they made a shape with a rubber sprayer.
Younger and Collins only made the one Jolly Jack statue for the Austin Sea Island, which stayed open for eight years. Younger, who is now the exhibit manager for Texas Parks and Wildlife, said he had no idea what became of that copy. But he remembers the original as a tough kid.
“That thing is really, really bulletproof,” said Younger. “It is really an incredible sculpture. I think it would be hard to find someone who could (today) do this type of work. To put something like this together in concrete, molded directly, not in form and casting, is really amazing. “
Nowadays, this unique statue is a selfie magnet for fans of all ages. Barclay Anthony said guests who had dinner at the flagship Sea Island as children are now taking photos of their own children and grandchildren with Jolly Jack.
And that one-stop shop is the only place you’ll find it.
Sea Island has six locations in San Antonio and one in New Braunfels, but there are no plans to build another Jolly Jack statue.
“That was our decision to keep the original very original,” said Anthony.
He’s definitely a real catch.
rguzman@express-news.net | Twitter: @reneguz
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