BATON ROUGE - On the first Friday of Lent season, customers at Tony's Seafood are usually congregating and clamoring to get their claws on a sack of crawfish.

This season isn't drawing the record-breaking crowds because of record-high prices. Manager Darren Pizzolato says scarce supply means a pound of crawfish costs double what customers would typically expect.

"It's the highest [our] crawfish has ever been," Pizzolato said.

Despite the price increase, customers are still showing up for their mudbugs. They are just buying less.

"I think they are fair for how things are going nowadays. You gotta understand it from both sides. Yes, they're high and yes we want them, of course. They'll come down sooner or later," said Nicholas Foster, a customer.

"You just have to work it into your budget," said Lakesha Dunn, another customer.

For the foreseeable future, customers who are pinching pennies will just have to wait for the hot commodity to simmer down.