The seafood market and restaurant is open for takeout and dine-in at its waterfront outdoor dining space.
Jimmy Geurts | Sarasota Herald-TribuneWhile the Manatee County commercial fishing village of Cortez has been affected by the pandemic like any other place in the world, one of its best-known restaurant owners said the area has fared relatively well thanks to its plethora of outdoor waterfront dining spots and loyal visitor base.
Star Fish Company, owned by third-generation Cortezian Karen Bell, features fresh seafood both at its market, or cooked and served at its dockside outdoor restaurant space. Star Fish also offers takeout, and recently began again serving stone crab, which started its current season Oct. 15.
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Bell is also a co-owner of the seafood distributor A.P. Bell Fish Company and fellow Cortez restaurant Tide Tables. In a phone interview, Bell discussed how Star Fish has handled the pandemic, as well as the stone crab and tourist seasons.
What does your dine-in setup look like currently?
Star is 100% outdoor and it's 100 seats outdoors, but they're picnic tables, so there's often a lot of sharing going on. And what Star did, we just moved all the tables far apart, to the required six feet apart, and tried to go like that when we were allowed to go back to seating people.
What are you doing in terms of takeout or other options for those who don't feel comfortable doing dine-in yet?
The way Star Fish does it, the food comes in a box anyway, it's a retail box. So we were almost ready to go anyway for the to-go-type business, and we were lucky in that local customers continued to support us. We did a pretty good to-go business, and were able to stay in business. That worked out way better than for a lot of people. For Star, it's just call-in and you can pick it up. You have to walk inside to pick it up, but there is Plexiglass at the point where you pick it up, or where you order, it's the same place. There's a Plexiglass shield there.
How has the market component of Star Fish been faring, and what items have been popular there?
It's funny, the stone crab claws have been popular. I'm kind of surprised because the price is higher than I thought it was going to be. I thought it would follow the lobster market more and it didn't, I guess maybe it's because of there not being a whole lot. But they are good; there is I guess nothing that tastes quite like them. But it's been moving really well in the market, as has grouper, and right now's a really good time for mullet because they're real fat. But everything in the market's been doing well. I think people are still cooking at home more than they did at one point, and they're cooking seafood.
How has stone crab season been going so far? Have you started offering the stone crab chowder yet?
The boats have been picking up, the production has been better the last week or so, so hopefully we'll be doing it soon. But truly we prefer to use the floaters to make that chowder, because they're easier for one thing to work with, because they're easy to crack. They're light, so they're less expensive also. So it just makes more sense to make the chowder out of that.
Besides social distancing, what are you doing in terms of sanitation?
The staff is wearing masks. The bar is partitioned off with the Plexiglass, they're wiping down tables between different customers. There are no condiments on the table, the tables are all six feet apart. We no longer touch the plasticware, we now buy prepackaged utensils in a little bag, and no paper towels on the table – nothing's on the table. So we're just trying to do what we can to minimize contact between anybody.
How have your three businesses handled the past several months in general?
Tide Tables and Star and A.P. Bell, I think we have handled it a lot better than a lot of other people, as far as still being able to work. We haven't had to fire people or reduce staff, we're doing fairly well considering a lot of the rest of the country. I mean, the weather has been more problematic honestly than anything else, the fishermen have struggled a little bit with all the storm systems that keep moving through and it makes it impossible to fish. In fact, we're moving fish pretty well all over the place, all over the country. The problem has truly been lack of production from the weather, which has limited that more than anything else.
Have you noticed the return of tourists to Cortez, and if so, has it been more out-of-towners or more people taking staycations?
Definitely, yes. It's really shocking, almost. Lots and lots of people are coming back. It's both. I spoke with a couple last night that were from Athens, Georgia. They just decided that they were tired of being stuck in the house, the wife's mother lives here and they just came down for a week. Then I've seen people too who have homes here who are returning, they come during winter season. They're back also.
How has the mood in Cortez in general been these past several months?
Well, I always feel sort of like Cortez is a little bit isolated, and no matter what, we just seem to kind of keep on keeping on. That might be partly due to the outdoor restaurants, because even though we obviously were impacted from the virus, we did manage to fare pretty well. At one point, I looked at the numbers from Star from January through the end of May; I think that we were down 18% from the prior year and I thought that was amazing, that was pretty good for overall sales. All in all, the community's been real supportive, even when we were just doing to-go. So we're just lucky to be in a place where people like coming out here, and they like eating what we produce from off these boats.
Star Fish Company Market and Restaurant (12306 46th Ave. W., Cortez; 941-794-1243; starfishcompany.com) is open 11:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday and Monday.
Some of the most popular menu items:
• Stone crab, which started its season Oct. 15, with the restaurant hoping to offer stone crab chowder soon as well.
• Grouper, which can be served fried, grilled or blackened.
• Mullet, which can be served fried, grilled or blackened as well as smoked.
• Shrimp, which can be served a variety of ways included fried and sautéed, along with peel-and-eat or coconut shrimp as appetizers and shrimp and grits as an entrée.
• The Cortez Special, which includes two seafood items of the customer's choice, and the Star Combination Platter, which offers a "little bit of everything."
Email entertainment reporter Jimmy Geurts at jimmy.geurts@heraldtribune.com.
The Link LonkNovember 12, 2020 at 07:30PM
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Restaurant News: Star Fish Company in Cortez on stone crab season, responding to pandemic - Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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