Doc’s Seafood Shack & Oyster Bar – a beloved Orange Beach restaurant that’s been a dining destination for Alabama Gulf Coast vacationers for decades – will open a new location in neighboring Foley later this year.

The new Doc’s – at the intersection of Miflin Road and South Juniper Street, about a mile east of Alabama Highway 59 – is in the early stages of construction and could be open by August, Doc’s Seafood Shack owner and founder Richard Schwartz tells AL.com.

“I love Foley,” Schwartz says. “Foley is a great business town. I already own the land, and I have owned the land for a long time.

“It’s close to OWA,” Schwartz adds, referring to the nearby Tropic Falls at OWA amusement complex. “And this old man thought it was a good decision, so that’s why it’s getting done.”

In addition to the original Doc’s Seafood Shack, Schwartz and his two sons own and operate Doc’s Seafood & Steaks, also in Orange Beach.

“I’m 82 years old, and I’ve got children that are running the two (Doc’s Seafood) stores that we have,” Schwartz says. “My decision to do (a third Doc’s) was that I thought those boys would need another restaurant.”

The new Foley location, Schwartz says, should generate more year-round traffic than the two Orange Beach restaurants, which do most of their business during the spring and summer vacation seasons.

“(Foley) is really booming, and I just think it’s a 12-month location that won’t have the ups and downs like you do operating on the Gulf,” he says.

“That’s not to say that the Gulf has not been great to me and my family because it has,” he adds. “But in the offseason, it’s tough, so I’m hoping we don’t have an offseason (in Foley).”

The new Foley location will seat about 160 guests, Schwartz says.

The menu – which will include fried and grilled seafood platters, fried shrimp loaf sandwiches, crab cakes, seafood gumbo and blue plate lunch specials – will be the same as the original Doc’s, he adds.

“My menu is not going to change,” Schwartz says. “I’m going to do what we do, so I’m really pleased and excited that we can take this menu and go up to Foley.”

Schwartz previously owned the iconic Gulf Shores breakfast and lunch spot Hazel’s Nook, which he bought from Hazel Scruggs in 1980. Last summer, Schwartz sold Hazel’s to restaurateur Garrett Spence, who rebranded the restaurant as a second location of Duck’s Diner.

Schwartz opened the original Doc’s Seafood Shack on Canal Road in Orange Beach in 1984 when he bought that property from the Hazel Scruggs estate. He named the restaurant Doc’s in honor of his father, who was a dentist.

The Schwartz family later opened Doc’s Seafood & Steaks on Perdido Beach Boulevard in Orange Beach.

AL.com included the original Doc’s on its 2023 list of 5 Venerable Alabama Gulf Coast Restaurants We Go Back to Every Summer, and later that same year, Southern Living named it one of the Best Places to Eat in Orange Beach, Alabama.