Fleur de Lolly: Buddy Gandy's Seafood Market, Panama City, FL

Buddy Gandy, and his brother Kenyon, began offering seafood and ice for fishermen in the Panama City, Florida area 64 years ago through their family owned business, Buddy Gandy's Seafood Market. Their business page states, "We offer a wide variety of seafood from fresh shrimp, oysters fish, mussels, clams, octopus, squid, crabs, scallops, and more. We also have bait!"

The address for the Seafood Market is 3004 West U.S. Highway 98, Panama City, FL 32401.

Not only do they have fresh seafood, they also have ready to eat dips and provide a steaming service, where you can choose your seafood (especially those shrimp!) and have them steamed in minutes. We have eaten literally dozens and dozens of steamed shrimp on the beach for our lunch while on vacation through the years.

If you want to take some of this fresh Gulf deliciousness home with you, they pack for travel. The employees are knowledgeable and will gladly assist you with your purchases and answer any questions you may have about preparing your selection.

I asked for permission to take a few pictures while Sweet Harold was choosing our purchases to bring home. And yes, everything we purchased was safely packed in ice for the 7 hour trip home from the Gulf. When we arrived home, there were no leaks and we simply transferred our items to freezer safe bags and deposited them in the "big freezer."

We now have a wonderful stash of crab and shrimp of different sizes to be enjoyed through the Winter.

You can also purchase shrimp "head on" which, when paired with the shells, makes a great beginning for your homemade shrimp stock. Speaking of stock, there are also fish heads and back bones available at VERY reasonable prices. Y'all know I am a big fan of homemade stock. I love the fact that they don't waste any part of the fish here. Stock up on those if you stop by. See what I did there? 👀

The far right bin looks depleted because Sweet Harold has been buying those shrimp! See the bag over the middle bin? It was filled up nicely as well before he was finished.

Royal Reds! These are the King of the Shrimp World. These are caught off the coast of Alabama and have much richer taste than other Gulf Shrimp. Never pass an opportunity to enjoy some of these beauties.

Now on to the prepared dips! I wasn't going to handle the packaging to satisfy my OCD with the containers by turning them all right side up, but here we have smoked mackerel dip along with smoked tuna dip. They also have house made cocktail sauce that you can take with you to enjoy with those steamed shrimp!

If crab is one of your favorites, you can choose between lump to claw meat. These are great to have in your freezer when you decide you MUST have a crab cake or crab bisque.