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The Little Lucharitos location on Main Road in Aquebogue has just gone from slinging tacos and burritos to offering Southern-style comfort food.
Good Juju’s BBQ & Seafood Shack opened May 12.
Owner Marc LaMaina, also the founder of the rapidly expanding Lucharitos chain, went back and forth with his chef, John Vanderwolf, before deciding on a classic seafood and barbecue shack menu and vibe — reminiscent of those found in Florida or the Carolinas.
“John is an avid BBQ enthusiast and fish monger who was given creative freedom with the menu and came up with a diverse range of flavors,” LaMaina said.
The restaurant’s interior was designed to resemble small crab shack restaurants that dot the roadways in Southern coastal towns.
LaMaina said Little Lucharitos proved to be too close to his Mattituck and Center Moriches locations. So, he made the decision to pivot, rebrand and relaunch.
The restaurant is named after his son Julien.
“Julien, who is very rarely ‘good,'” he said with a laugh. “So it’s a bit of a play on him, we tease him that we are going to change the name to Bad JuJu’s if he isn’t good!
“But that doesn’t work, so we just let him slide.”
If you go
Good JuJu’s is located at 487 Main Road in Aquebogue. There, you can expect everything from seafood boils to wings, smoked meats to mac and cheese.
But “he crab boils are the draw,” LaMaina said. “Snow crab and Dungeness crab are the stars of the show, but you can build your own crab boil bag then choose your butter.
Good JuJu’s offers the option for jerk butter, garlic butter, Cajun butter or the company’s special JuJus’s butter, which is all the flavors combined. It’s brought to the table in a plastic steam bag, flipped and poured onto the plate in front of you. Check the website for updated hours.
