What Happened to Coffee's Boilin' Pot After Restaurant: Impossible (FN)?

On Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network), chef Robert Irvine traveled to Madisonville, Louisiana, to attempt a rescue of Coffee's Boilin' Pot, a seafood restaurant that owners Tim Oalmann and Allene Bouey had bought from a previous owner six years earlier for $250,000. The couple, who met working at the restaurant as teenagers, married and had a daughter, but had divorced three years before filming while continuing to run the business together, Tim in the kitchen and Allene at the front of house. According to the episode, the restaurant had been losing roughly $6,000 a month for four years, the couple had gone into personal debt to keep it afloat, and Irvine found no usable flooring, a strong odor in the dining room, and kitchen conditions he judged unsafe to eat in.

Facing customers who described the food as bland after years of decline, Irvine pulled owner Tim out of the kitchen, had the crew clean and de-grease equipment, and brought in designers to rebuild the dining room around a lighter, more casual look. He introduced a new menu built around dishes such as a crawfish-and-pork-belly spring roll and a reworked catfish preparation, and coached Tim on faster, more consistently seasoned boil methods. Irvine also pushed the co-owners to resolve their business relationship, and Allene ultimately agreed to step back from her front-of-house role after a three-week transition so Tim could run the restaurant on his own.

The episode, which aired November 16, 2011, ended with a relaunch night that customers praised for its new decor and menu. A fan site, realitytvrevisited.com, reported that Coffee's Boilin' Pot closed in July 2012, the business was sold that August, and the building was subsequently damaged by Hurricane Isaac; a different seafood restaurant, Crabby Shack, opened in the same space in February 2013 following a further renovation. These aftermath details have not been independently confirmed by a named news outlet or official record.