The road to Billy’s Seafood runs past everything that makes lower Baldwin County what it is — crop fields and cattle pastures, bridges over creeks and bays, and finally the west bank of the Bon Secour River, where the pavement ends and the working waterfront begins. Past the Tin Top Restaurant, at the end of the road, sits one of the last of a vanishing breed: an authentic boat-to-market seafood house.
The sign out front says it all: “If it swims… We have it!”
A River That Feeds a Bay
Geography built this place. The Bon Secour River drains into Bon Secour Bay on the coastline of the Gulf, emptying into Mobile Bay just north of the entrance to the Intracoastal Waterway. It also joins Oyster Bay, a wildlife preserve protected by the Nature Conservancy — a sprawl of coastal marsh and wetlands where pelicans, herons and seagulls work the water alongside the American alligators lurking in the salt marsh.
This has been a productive fishing village for generations, and it still is: seafood processing plants line the banks, and the wreckage of old trawlers thrown ashore by hurricanes stands along the shoreline like monuments to the resilience of the families who call Bon Secour home. The bay itself is a popular angling destination for redfish, speckled trout and black drum — bring a saltwater fishing license.
From the Dock, Not a Warehouse
What separates Billy’s from a grocery case is proximity. Baskets of off-the-boat shrimp sit on ice out front. Inside, the day’s catch is laid out on ice: filets of triggerfish, lump crabmeat, large shrimp by the pound. On a busy afternoon, Billy Parks himself — the market’s namesake — is as likely to be loading a shrimp boat at the dock for that evening’s run as he is to be talking business, and the boats keep passing the dock on their way out to the bay while customers browse.
Parks will tell you business has been good, and that the COVID years produced lines out the door as home cooks rediscovered local seafood. The state has taken notice of the operation too: Alabama’s aquaculture program once featured Parks as its “Processor of the Month,” a nod to the market’s standing in the state’s commercial seafood industry.
Beyond the Case
The market rewards anyone who lingers. Alongside the fresh catch and oysters, the freezers hold gumbo stock — the base for a dozen good family arguments about how much shrimp and crabmeat to add. The seasoning rack covers whatever you plan to do in the kitchen, and the cold cases hold ready-to-eat staples like fresh smoked tuna dip and shrimp salad. Crabmeat is priced well, and in spring, Parks boils crawfish on weekends — call ahead to order, because they go fast. Hats and t-shirts round out the experience for the faithful.
Why It Matters
Places like Billy’s are the front line of coastal Alabama’s food identity. The shrimp in the case were swimming in the Gulf days — sometimes hours — before they hit the ice. The crabmeat was picked nearby. The faces behind the counter belong to the water the product came from. Every purchase keeps a working waterfront working, and every basket on the ice is a small argument that Bon Secour’s fishing village ought to remain one.
Billy’s Seafood sits at 16780 River Road in Bon Secour, on the west side of the Bon Secour River — an easy detour from Gulf Shores, Fort Morgan or the Ferry Route on Scenic 98. Hours follow the boats, so earlier is better for the best selection. Bring a cooler. And when the sign out front makes its promise, believe it: if it swims, they have it.