People have traveled from around the world to get a taste of T’Beaux’s Blues Le Roux’s famous crawfish. The Ray family has fed patrons from as far as Australia, Switzerland and South Africa.

“It’s the best crawfish in the world,” said Mary, the matriarch of the family. “It’s our seasoning that makes it.”

Mary’s husband Tommy and his seasoning producers are the only ones who know the secret recipe.

“It’s in a lock box at my vault,” he said. “Dottley Spice Mart makes it for me and they had to sign saying they can’t disclose it to anybody or sell it to anybody.”

Mary said people have begged the family to produce the spice commercially, but the family has yet to do so.

Tommy said all seasonings have salt, but his has less salt and three extra ingredients.

“They have six different spices and ingredients including the salt, and I have nine ingredients,” he said, cautioning against saying too much.

Ninety-five percent of the restaurant’s crawfish is pond-raised, coming from South Louisiana, primarily Crowley, Mamou and Eunice.

The family, originally of Vicksburg, spent many years in Baton Rouge, where Tommy worked on the railroad, which is where the name of the family chain was born.

“We had 12 Tommys out of 33 guys, so everybody had a nickname,” he said. “One engineer started calling me Bo, and a conductor called me T-Bo.”

Mary told Tommy he needed to make the name French, hence T’Beaux’s.

“We came from Baton Rouge, and we started talking about it in ’91, and it materialized in ’91,” Tommy said.

“We started off with one trailer then a few years later we moved up to two,” Mary added.

The health department came in and told the Rays in 1997 that they had to have a home base, which is when they purchased the original T’Beaux’s Blues Le Roux location at 1625 Culkin Road.

When the Rays started selling crawfish, there was only one crawfish operation in town, The Dock, owned and operated by Charles Toney.

“There was just two of us back then, then in ’96 there were about eight or nine people doing it, then in ’97 there were about three people doing it,” he said. “They thought there was a lot of money in it and easy work, but it’s not. It’s hard work.”

Jamie Ray, Tommy’s youngest son, started working in the family business in 1992 at 12 years old washing crawfish. He’s now the co-owner of the Vicksburg location with Perry and Boyd.

“We usually start Super Bowl weekend and go through the Fourth of July,” Jamie said of the season.

Tommy’s eldest son Kelly Ray branched off on his own in 1998, selling crawfish out of a trailer in Clinton. Kelly now has three locations — Clinton, Byram and Flowood — where he sells crawfish yearround.

“I cook my own and quick freeze them during the off season,” he said. “You don’t sell as much, but it keeps them coming back.”

The family has done catering across the south from Texas to Tennessee to Georgia and as far north as Illinois.

“I used to travel for the United States Environmental Services,” Kelly said of his biggest catering customer. “I do a bunch of colleges and things like that.”

When they first started, especially, they were often asked how to eat a crawfish.

“The best way,” Jamie said simply, “is with a cold beer.”

The family unanimously agreed you’re not doing it right if you don’t suck the head.

“If you’re good at it, you don’t crack nothing,” Tommy said. ”You just twist it, get that little bit of meat between your teeth, and squeeze and suck and start chewing.”

Tommy said when he first started selling, crawfish sold for $1.50 per pound and got down as low as $1 per pound. Now, boiled crawfish are going for $5.50 per pound.

It’s all about supply and demand, Kelly said.

“Mother nature controls the prices,” he said. “Crawfish are less than half active when the water temperature is below 50 degrees. They don’t move and they don’t grow.”

Despite rising prices for the southern delicacy, business is good.

“It’s basically just keeping everyone happy,” Kelly said. “The name’s been around for years, and that’s the reason I’ve been so successful.”