About Us: 

The Isleton Crawdad Festival came about in a strange, perhaps divine, way. In 1986, the Chamber of Commerce was to hold a small affair at the Catholic Church picnic area. There was a problem in attracting someone who could do a food booth for the event. The Chamber approached the owners of the Del Rio Hotel for a solution to the problem of the food booth. Of course the folks at the Del Rio Hotel do cook, but did not do any "outdoor type cooking", as part of the hotel business. Just when things seemed bleak and the event was just around the corner (a week or so), something strange happened! It was in the hotel lounge that a stranger (tourist/visitor) was sipping on a refreshment when the hotel cook brought out a big platter of boiled crawdads (crawfish) for happy hour snacks. It seemed that the stranger himself was connected to the delicacies of Louisiana cooking, and he was so excited about that platter of cooked crawdads, he began to talk about the crawfish festivals and music back home in Louisiana.