Outer Banks Boil Company is well known and much loved for its signature seafood boils, stocked with jumbo shrimp, crab legs, scallops, andouille sausage, red bliss potatoes, corn on the cob and sweet Vidalia onions, steamed and boiled to perfection in the company’s secret spice combination and served with its homemade cocktail sauce.
But it is so much more than that.
Outer Banks Boil Company is an experience that owner Matt Khouri has cultivated and perfected since he first created the business 13 summers ago.
Matt originally came up with the concept for Outer Banks Boil Company in 2012 as a senior at UNC Wilmington and made it the focus of his senior project in an entrepreneur class. His goal was to replicate a family tradition while growing up vacationing in Corolla. His parents, with three growing boys, started making seafood boils as an alternative to going out to eat.
“It was such an awesome way to get people together and enjoy each other’s company without having to be confined to a table in a restaurant,” says Matt, who grew up outside of Baltimore but fell in love with the Outer Banks at an early age and moved here after graduating. “So that was kind of the genesis of it.”
Matt has the laid-back and friendly personality and the heart for service and community that make him a natural fit for the Outer Banks. He started the company out of his apartment and his parents’ basement while juggling several different jobs.
“It was kind of like a side hustle,” Matt explains, adding that the first year he did maybe 10 seafood boil caterings total. The next year it was 30 caterings, and then 2014 and 2015 it was between 50 and 60.
As Outer Banks Boil Company grew, so did Matt’s vision. With boardshorts and sneakers as his designated company uniform, Khouri opened his first brick and mortar store in the Timbuck II Shopping Center in Corolla, a store that became the company’s flagship location.
“We just kept evolving from there,” Matt says.
Initially, Outer Banks Boil Company only catered, which entailed going to homes and doing the boil – what he likes to call an alternative dining experience in which a staff member comes into homes and vacation rentals and cooks, serves and cleans up.
“The whole goal was to keep folks from having to leave their house and spend time with their family without everything that comes with going out to eat,” Matt says.
Once the company opened the brick-and-mortar store, Matt added a take-out option so that customers could pick up the pot with all the ingredients and steam it themselves.
Fast forward to 2025 and that senior project at UNC Wilmington has turned into a thriving business with nine locations, including stores in Kitty Hawk and Avon as well as Ocean City, New Jersey; Ocean City, Maryland; St. Augustine, Florida; Oak Island, North Carolina; Emerald Island, North Carolina; and Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Matt’s mother, Denise Khouri, aka CMO (Chief Mom Officer), has been a vital part of Outer Banks Boil Company’s success from the beginning.
“Our mission statement is that we don’t make meals, we make memories,” Matt says, noting that many vacationers have saved up the entire year for their vacation. “For some, we are that one night when they don’t have to cook and don’t have to do anything. There are families I have been catering for since 2012, and I’ve watched their children grow up. That is really special.”
As the business has expanded, Matt’s heart for service has blossomed into the company’s Our EPIC (Emitting Positive Impact Collectively) Project that he launched in 2022. EPIC was born out of the son and mom team’s desire to have a larger impact and legacy beyond seafood boils.
Our EPIC Project’s mission is to support young entrepreneurs, strengthen community health initiatives and share all the commu nity has to offer by providing an EPIC Family Vacation Retreat to a deserving family.
EPIC focuses on three main things. The first is to support young entrepreneurs on the Outer Banks through coaching and mentoring as well as financial and marketing support. The second is to strengthen community mental health initiatives (this includes hosting wellness events, certifying community members in Mental Health First Aid and increasing awareness and messaging supporting mental health), which Denise is very involved in locally.
EPIC organizes and hosts a free mental health vacation on the Outer Banks for a deserving family each year. Customers nominate families, and EPIC chooses one and covers the cost of their house, meals, groceries and excursions as well as treats them to one of their famous boils.
Another recent EPIC initiative was to assist with Hurricane Helene relief efforts. Matt’s connection to the aviation community allowed him to coordinate missions with Operation Airdrop to get much-needed supplies quickly into the affected areas. A few weeks later, the team loaded up trucks and headed out to Western NC to boil for the town of Bakersville. Many of the folks out there had not had a hot meal since the storm hit, and a seafood boil was definitely a welcome and special meal for the community.
As Matt points out, EPIC is an opportunity “to have an impact beyond just the food on the table.”
“Community is so important, and if we can affect lives through the boils and making memories, that is amazing,” he says. “But EPIC is another way we can have a positive impact on the community.”
(252) 715-2744
OuterBanksBoilCompany.com
kittyhawk@outerbanksboilcompany.com
About the Author Michelle Wagner
Michelle has been writing about the Outer Banks for 25 years. She lives on Colington Island with her husband, two children and a number of dogs and cats.
