Crab Rolls Hit the Road

Wearing battered Nikes,camouflage pants and an untucked T-shirt hugging his chef's belly, the guy who goes by the name of "Moose" doesn't look the part of a restaurateur on the brink of big things. But Shannon Yates, owner of Crü in Bell Tower Shops in Fort Myers, is prepared to feed a national audience.

His new 10,000-square-foot warehouse in downtown Fort Myers will churn out thousands of boxes of the crab rolls that have long been a favorite menu item at his restaurant. The Shan-San rolls were sold at City of Palms Park during Red Sox spring training this year. Soon, Yates says, industry giant Sysco Corp. will be distributing them to restaurants and other venues around the country.

Yates, 35, opened Crü three years ago with a pair of loyal investors-John and Elizabeth Kagan-zero formal training as a chef or businessperson and only three years of back-of-the-house experience. He had previously worked at Bacchus & Co. in Fort Myers, formerly called "The Prosecutor" in honor of the high number of attorneys who made up the restaurant's clientele. There he created a fried crab roll that was "a meal in itself," he says.

At Crü, Yates wanted to create a similar product, but one that was less filling and had a shorter cooking time. Experimentation yielded the current roll with artificial crab (surimi), various spices he won't divulge, and cheese, all nestled in a spring roll and then fried and served with a sweet sauce and a spicy sauce.

The result was a hit at Crü, and customers soon started hounding Yates to do something on a bigger scale with the popular morsels.

"Finally we just kind of buckled down," Yates recalls. In autumn 2006, he and the Kagans, with operations director and classically trained chef David Funaro, formed Food Nerds LLC with "a few hundred thousand dollars," Yates says. Their first distribution conquest was Cheney Brothers, a company that supplies restaurants, hotels and clubs all over Florida.