with Billy and Wanda Nichols

STORY BY JACQUELINE FOLACCI PHOTOS BY DANIELA LOERA

Mahi Nic is a hidden gem on South Padre Island run by Billy and Wanda Nichols. They are true hospitalitarians in that they have chosen to provide a positive consistent experience to every customer, and they focus on sustainability, by sourcing local ingredients and using eco-friendly disposables.

Just off the Queen Isabella Causeway to the left, Mahi Nic is located in the Sea Ranch Marina not too far from the entrance to Isla Blanca Park. The eatery’s al fresco dining lends to the casual island vibes. You can come salty, straight from the beach. The food is some of the best on the island. You can taste the freshness and the pop in flavors, and every team member delivers exceptional customer service.

I met Billy and Wanda on my first visit to Mahi Nic. I had heard whispers about the spot, great burgers, amazing fish tacos. My favorite is the iron shrimp skillet. They use local wild Gulf shrimp, one of five restaurants on the island to do so. You can get the shrimp blackened, with garlic butter or, my favorite, Peruvian style.

As the Nicholses and I sat down for our conversation, seagulls were squawking in the background. Towards the end of our interview, a Winter Texan couple wearing Sea Turtle Inc. volunteer T-shirts thanked the owners for making their stay on South Padre Island special. The duo mentioned how they loved the food, especially the burger and the frozen drinks, but most of all they appreciated the restaurant using paper straws, which are turtle friendly. They said that Mahi Nic was “the only place” they found on the island that does.

Mahi Nic is also dog friendly, and will offer your pup a water bowl and treat. As it’s boat friendly too, you may order from your boat, parked in the marina.

We asked Billy and Wanda a handful of questions to get to know them and their restaurant better.

Q: How did you get to the Rio Grande Valley?

BILLY: My parents lived down here in Port Isabel for over 30 years. We have been coming down here off and on. My dad passed away eight years ago. My mom, she was very independent and fine for several years, but we came down one Christmas and we kind of noticed, and the neighbors told us, she was getting dementia. Should we bring her to Utah [where the Nicholses were living] or [keep her] here? And that was before COVID and she was playing golf three times a week. We thought if we bring her to Utah and all the snow, she won’t get any exercise. So we sold our house, moved down here and then ended up in the restaurant business.

Q: Why did you choose to open a restaurant in the SPI Marina?

BILLY: I was in sales, sold high-end systems. I ended up needing a change. I thought I had something down here and it didn’t work the way we thought. My mom lives in Long Island Village and at 5 p.m. everyone goes to have cocktails. One night someone said, “Hey, did you hear that little restaurant on the island is for sale?” Really?

A guy named Nate actually started the restaurant. He had only been here a few months and had to go back to Michigan, and he had some kids running it. The basic part of the menu was his, but the employees would not show up for work. So people would come to eat and it was a ghost town. When we bought the restaurant, we didn’t have any formal training, We kind of tweaked the menu. Nate came down and spent a week throwing pans at us. Just kidding. He was teaching us how to cook.

WANDA: Nate had some training on how to cook fish using the blackening technique. And that is one thing he taught us: don’t bread your fish, don’t bread your shrimp. This blackening technique is the way to go, and so we kind of held on to that. He comes back every year and spends a month here on South Padre, and he sits here and kind of watches us. He tells us, “You guys are killing it.” He has been very supportive.

Q: You opened Mahi Nic a few months before the pandemic. What was that like?

BILLY: We opened in October of 2019. We had only been here a couple of months and then COVID hit. We inherited one employee, and she was a lifesaver. We could not have done it without her. For a while it was just the three of us. We had outdoor seating. We were very lucky.

WANDA: With COVID, we took it on. Being here every night we would cut the big size mahi — we were trimming it ourselves — and we would peel our own shrimp.

BILLY: We would close at 6:30 p.m. shutdown, go home and make our dinner and then we would run to the store, buy all the fresh veggies for the next day, come back, do the basic prep for the next day, then go home at 2 or 3 a.m. and then do it again the next day. Those first two years were just …

At first no one knew we were here. And there were days when we would not even sell a Coke, nothing. And we were looking at each other and saying, “What are we doing here?” We didn’t know what we were going to do.

WANDA: We had to ease into it. There were days where we had 25 orders. And we were like, “Whoa, Look at this!” But we have held true to offer fresh every day. That’s part of it. We make everything from scratch. I think people really appreciate that. And it’s about the consistency … and customer service.

Q: What is your restaurant philosophy?

BILLY: Wanda is a real fanatic about when a dish is served. It has to look like the photo (there are photos of their dishes near the register). It’s so nice when a customer comes up and says, “Damn, this is good.” People don’t expect much since we are on the docks, and then they eat our food. We love it when they are surprised. It’s so cool.

WANDA: We work with a fish broker that we have had since we opened the restaurant. It’s important for us to get mahi as fresh as we can. We have local wild Texas Gulf shrimp. Our beef is ground fresh every morning. We go to the store every morning and hand-pick our produce. We have our burger buns, and we don’t tell anyone where we get them. That is our signature.

BILLY: Like the hot dogs — nope, that is not going to cut it. Wanda went through three different brands to try to make it right. We have a hot dog on the menu that we now call the Captain Henry. One of the local captains would come in and order a hot dog with the bacon wrap with chipotle mayo and pico de gallo. One day I said, “Let’s try it,” and we were like, “Damm, that’s good!” So we put it on the menu, and it’s named it after him.

Q: What do you like most about running a restaurant?

WANDA: We have met incredible people. The relationships that we built with the Winter Texans — we look forward to them coming back. Or a customer tells their friends and they are so proud when they tell us, “I told my friends and look who I brought with me” — new customers.

BILLY: Or they say, “My family is in town, and this is our first place.”

WANDA: The people that we meet. That to me is the most rewarding. I love that.

BILLY: Yeah.

Billy and Wanda’s favorite dishes on Mahi Nic’s menu are the mahi nachos and the shrimp tacos. Check out the rest of their offerings on Facebook. Mahi Nic is located at 33384 State Park Road 100, South Padre Island.