Pascagoula dive has some of the nation’s best seafood, magazine says

Bozo’s Grocery & Grill in Pascagoula has made Coastal Living’s Top 20 all-time favorite seafood dives in America.

The Time Inc. magazine has given Bozo’s state and regional distinctions in the past, but this one is nationwide, where it’s competing with lobster rolls in Connecticut and clam cakes in Rhode Island.

“Long live the laid-back shacks where the menus hang on the wall, the beers chill on ice and the food comes piled high, deep-fried, slathered, breaded, buttered, and steamed,” Coastal Living wrote.

Bozo’s came in at No. 18.

The list is compiled from 20 years of rating by contributing editor Steve Millburg, a seafood dive pro.

After years of exploring and loving “those rustic restaurants on the water that offer fresh seafood and no fuss,” he compiled his ultimate ranking.

Many of the top dives are on the water. Bozo’s, at 2012 Ingalls Avenue, is not. But the seafood, fresh from the water, is brought in the back doors nonstop.

Bozo’s was up against “transcendent albacore tuna fish-and-chips” in Oregon, and life-changing lumps of lobster on the East Coast.

Of Bozo’s, Millburg said: “A po-boy tastes best on the Gulf Coast, where they get the bread just right. Bozo’s does an overstuffed version, which arrives hot from the kitchen in a white paper sack with your name scrawled on it. This is the kind of meal you hop a plane for.”

Sea-N-Suds Restaurant & Oyster Bar in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Casamento’s Restaurant in New Orleans, with its signature oyster loaf, took two of Millburg’s top spots.

This story was originally published May 4, 2017 at 12:52 PM with the headline "Pascagoula dive has some of the nation’s best seafood, magazine says."