Fish house serves up freshwater catches
The restaurant opening in Largo offers fish from the Great Lakes, as well as local selections.
By CHRISTINA K. COSDON, Times Staff Writer
Published January 5, 2004
[Last modified January 5, 2004, 01:45:54]
LARGO - Now winter residents from the Great Lakes states and Canada can dine on their favorite freshwater fish at one of Largo's newest restaurants - Great Lakes Fish House.
The restaurant's specialty fishes include walleye, lake perch and bluegill. The menu also offers ocean seafood, such as Atlantic cod, shrimp, grouper and salmon, and a selection of chicken, steak and burgers.
Restaurant owner Wally Ogrodowski, 45, hails from Rockwood, Mich., on Lake Erie, and has been in the restaurant business for two decades. He owned and operated the Huron River Inn for 17 years in Rockwood before deciding to open the restaurant in Largo. His partner and friend Rick Bonin is from Gibraltar, Mich., and had a research and consulting business in Rockwood before joining the Largo venture.
Ogrodowski got the idea for the new business two years ago when locals returning from wintering in Florida complained about not being able to get freshwater fish at restaurants.
"I called my supplier and asked why Florida didn't get freshwater fish," Ogrodowski said. "He didn't know why. My next question was, can it be done, and when he said yes, I began doing some research."
He learned that by some measure, the best market for a restaurant business specializing in freshwater fish from the Great Lakes extended from Tampa to Naples. "It's the area with the largest population of Midwesterners and Northerners," Ogrodowski said.
After his second trip to the Tampa area, "I knew this could be done," he said. In April last year, he set up Great Lakes Fish House Inc., a Florida corporation, and hired a broker to search for property.
In the meantime, he called on his friend Bonin to work with the broker. Bonin had moved to Spring Hill a few years before. "I needed someone down here I could trust to work with the broker. Plus I knew Rick was experienced in new business startups," Ogrodowski said.
By July last year, Bonin, 46, was thinking he would like to join the venture. At the same time, Ogrodowski, 45, was preparing to ask him to become a partner.
"Our styles are totally different," Bonin said. "Like night and day," Ogrodowski said. "But lots of times, we arrive at the same decision and find we were both thinking of the same thing at the same time. We complement each other in a lot of areas."
The partnership was sealed, and Bonin sold his business in Michigan and moved from Spring Hill to Clearwater with his wife and son. Ogrodowski, a bachelor, sold his restaurant and house and moved to Clearwater.
They leased the former Rib City restaurant at 776 N Missouri Ave. with an option to buy and began renovations. They had a dock built over the pond and installed two large aquariums, built a fireplace and bought all new furniture. The partners estimate they have invested $1.1-million in the business to date.
A stone fireplace with a huge cypress log mantel and a print of the Edmund Fitzgerald above it is part of the restaurant's distinctive decor. Birch tree columns are placed throughout the dining areas and on the bar.
Tables and chairs are in natural oak, and the walls are decorated with maps and shipwrecks of the Great Lakes and lithographs of Great Lakes lighthouses, boats and ships by noted maritime artist Leo Kuschel.
The restaurant has a staff of 70 and seating for 200, including an outdoor patio overlooking a pond. It has a full bar and eight beers on tap.
Dinner prices range from $8.95 for deep-fried Atlantic cod (fish and chips) to $14.95 for a 12-ounce rib-eye steak. The menu includes such appetizers as stuffed jalapeno peppers with raspberry sauce for $5.50 and fried kielbasa (sausage) slices for $7.25. Soups include a soup of the day for $2.75, chili for $3.25 and New England style clam chowder for $3.50.
Peel and eat shrimp for $7.95 is served steaming hot or cold with melted butter and cocktail sauce. A Lake Ontario burger for $6.96 comes open-faced and smothered in chili with shredded cheddar jack cheese and chopped onion. A walleye sub goes for $8.95 and a grouper sandwich for $7.95.
Every Monday through Thursday, from 3 to 5 p.m., all fish dinners and frog legs are $8.95. The restaurant is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner.
The partners say they won't stop with the Largo location.
"The whole idea is not to have one restaurant," Bonin said.
"We plan to open seven restaurants within the next 24 months," Ogrodowski said. "The second will open in New Port Richey in April, a third in Tampa in September and the rest will be located in Bradenton, Sarasota, Fort Myers and Naples."
Great Lakes Fish House
776 N Missouri Ave., Largo
Restaurant specializing in freshwater seafood from the Great Lakes.
70 employees
"The whole idea is not to have one restaurant." Rick Bonin, president of Great Lakes Fish House Inc. "We plan to open seven restaurants in the next 24 months." Wally Ogrodowski, chief executive.
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