What started out as a roadside seafood shack nearly 40 years ago has grown into one of Slidell’s best-loved restaurants.

Mary and Calvin Young opened Young’s Restaurant on Robert Boulevard in February 1969. Growing weary of the daily commute to his job at Falstaff Brewing Co. in New Orleans, Calvin was looking to start his own business closer to home.

“We had opened a men’s clothing store across the street, but it was struggling,” said Mary Young. “Someone from New Orleans offered to buy our inventory, so after we sold it we thought we might try a restaurant.”

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The couple had previously purchased a small building on the east side of Robert Boulevard, where they briefly ran a snowball stand, and they decided to start selling boiled shrimp and hamburgers, Mary’s specialty. The only beer they sold at the time was Falstaff, since Calvin still maintained close ties with the company.

Décor was simple, just a few picnic tables built by Calvin and a small plywood counter. Then, as now, there was no sign out front indicating the name of the place, only a hand-painted sign hung on a pine tree reading “OPEN.”

That sign was often the source of some confusion to patrons.

“People thought that was the name of the place,” said Craig Young, Calvin’s son and the restaurant’s current owner. “They’d come by and ask, ‘Is this Open’s?’”

The little restaurant did a brisk business, mostly in takeout orders, and eventually added pizza to the menu in place of the seafood. The pizzas were popular and were a mainstay for several years. Craig still gets calls every now and then from loyal customers who have been away for a while wanting to order a pizza.

The restaurant became the family business, and each of Calvin and Mary’s four children — Craig, Kevin, Nancy and Keith — spent time helping out.

Kevin also worked with Michael Strecker, a neighbor and local stand-up comic, to produce a satirical tabloid that appeared in the former Slidell Sentry-News each year to mark the restaurant’s anniversary.

It must be in the blood. Calvin’s father was a chef at a New Orleans hotel, and while Craig took over operations of the family restaurant after Calvin’s death in 1999, Kevin and Keith went on to open restaurants as well, making for three generations of cooks in the business. Keith runs Keith Young’s Steakhouse in Madisonville, while Kevin is the proprietor of the popular KY’s Restaurant in Olde Towne Slidell.

Kevin, who was 13 when the restaurant opened, said the time he spent there helped prepare him for the day he would open his own place.

“It gave me the foundation I needed for the restaurant business,” said Kevin. “There were good lessons in how to offer quality, consistency and a good value.”

When Kevin opened KY’s in 1992, customers often came in looking for his mother’s hamburgers or his father’s pizza. To this day, he said, longtime patrons of Young’s will recount how they used to go every Friday night, even recalling where they sat and what they ate.

Craig’s 14-year-old son now helps out from time to time at Young’s. According to Craig, the youngster helped keep the restaurant going in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“We were lucky we didn’t really get any damage, so we reopened about six weeks after the storm, when the power was restored,” said Craig. “There was no one around to work, so it was just me, my son and one of his buddies in the kitchen.”

Some notable customers have dined at Young’s over the years, such as former Gov. Edwin Edwards, members of the New Orleans Saints and actress Donna Douglas, best known as Elly May Clampett on “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Longtime WDSU-TV anchorman Alec Gifford also filmed a cooking show at the restaurant a few years back.

Several couples over the years would get engaged while having dinner at Young’s, and many come back each year to celebrate their wedding anniversary. All in all, it’s been a smooth ride, said Mary.

“For the number of people we’ve served, no one has ever caused any trouble,” she said. “We’ve been lucky that it’s always been a very quiet place.”

The Youngs have made it a point to give back to their community, both here and in the New Orleans area, by contributing to various benefits. A series of framed prints in the foyer, signed by renowned cartoon animator Chuck Jones, attests to the family’s support of Children’s Hospital.

Mary lives next door, and though retired, she still helps out from time to time, supervising deliveries or greeting customers. She said she never envisioned the restaurant would have this kind of longevity. Now expanded to include several richly paneled rooms, with a menu featuring steaks and freshly caught seafood, it serves as a model for fine dining on the Northshore.

“This was just a simple place, and somehow it evolved,” said Craig. “People either love the restaurant business or they hate it, and in this family I guess we love it.”