The Fish House restaurant is so popular it draws hundreds each week, the owners say.
By JANET ZINK
Published March 5, 2004
It's lunchtime on Friday and cars are starting to fill the dirt parking lot outside the Fish House. They come in droves to this eatery on Shell Point Road so humble it has no walls or bathrooms.
Hungry patrons, many of them devoted regulars, patiently wait in line to order fried fish sandwiches and platters, smoked mullet, seafood croquettes and fresh-brewed sweetened tea. They eat their catch at picnic tables under a tin-roof pavilion.
On this day, Dan and Candy Morgan celebrate their 16th anniversary over baskets of fried shrimp, fish and oysters.
"It's kind of a treat coming here," Dan says. "You don't have to dress up and we can get good seafood."
They'll go someplace fancier for dinner, someplace with plates, perhaps.
But The Fish House is their favorite place to eat. They're trying to get in as many visits as possible before they move to New Orleans where Home Depot has transferred Dan.
The Morgans are not alone in their love of the Fish House. It's open only three days a week, but Cheryl Horne, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Jeff, says they serve up to 1,600 people on those days.
The Hornes say their decision to open The Fish House two years ago was God-inspired.
"We pray about all our decisions," Cheryl says.
The couple bought a mobile home park in Ruskin in 1996 and moved there from Plant City so Jeff, a charter fishing guide, could be closer to his work. They looked for some way to supplement their income. One night as they prayed together, Cheryl told Jeff that it might be fun to sell fish sandwiches out of a little rustic building.
"Cheryl, you're not going to believe this but I think we saw your building today," Jeff replied.
Jeff remembered driving by a little building in Tarpon Springs with a faded for sale sign in front of it.
The next day, they went back to check out the building, a mobile concession unit outfitted with a kitchen. They bought it, hauled it to Ruskin and set it up as a classroom where Cheryl could home-school their children when they weren't frying fish.
Conveniently, the lot in the mobile home park where they put the trailer was already zoned for commercial uses. They opened for business on a Saturday in February 2002 using grouper caught by Jeff.
"I had enough for 400 dinners and we sold out by 4:30 with just two of us here," Jeff says.
They took out the classroom so the cooking could continue in earnest.
Quickly, they established a following and volume became too great for Jeff to continue catching all the fish; now it comes from several different sources.
After a year of doing largely take-out, the Hornes added five picnic tables, a wooden swing and a pavilion to protect diners from the elements and fans to ease summer heat.
Jeff won't reveal the ingredients in the dry flour mixture that he dredges the fish in before throwing it into the fryer. But he does say that constantly replacing the peanut oil they use for cooking keeps the meals tasting fresh and light.
Roberta Slagle drives to the Fish House from Palmetto once, sometimes twice a week.
"I tell everybody to come to it," she said. "You'll never find any fish fixed like this anywhere in Florida."
The Fish House
HOURS: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday through Saturday
WHERE: 1505 Shell Point Road
PHONE: 641-9451 Prices range from $2 for a seafood croquette and $3.25 for a fried grouper sandwich to $10 for a large fried shrimp dinner and $11 for a Captain's Dinner that incudes fish, shrimp, oysters and clams. Dinners come with two side dishes.
