What do you know about R. Fish and Company?

I spent my late teen years working at R. Fish and Company; we all referred to it as R. Fish. The restaurant was owned by Mike Webster, along with a few other restaurants in town. Mike drove a Corvette and everyone hated when that car rolled into the parking lot. I think it only happened like three times during my stint at R. Fish and I never had any direct contact. However, he did seem to enjoy yelling at the managers. Everyone knew he had no clue what he was talking about because we could all hear him. Maybe that's why the place ended up eventually folding.

Working in the kitchen with the core group who seemed like they had been there forever, probably just a year or two, was actually a pretty good time now that I look back on it. Not unlike the end of Biloxi Blues where Matthew Broderick's character says it wasn't so much that it was a great time, more like because it happened when we were young....

Don H., the kitchen manager who I called Uncle Don as an inside joke about a talking fish, was a great guy. We drove to SF to watch the 49'rs shellac the Bears as my first time ever time going to a pro football game. 

Liz was the front house manager and really classed the place up.

Luke W. was this intense guy who always seemed stressed out but did great work in the main cooking line.

Andy had a great sense of humor, was also a tremendous cook and I think most people thought of him a Randy's sidekick but I'm pretty sure he thought it was the other way around.

I think Randy was the senior front line cook and controlled the cooking area. Great sense of humor and a smart guy.

Karina R. worked there for a little while and then went on to work at one of the TV stations. I just remember that she was super nice.

Who could forget Nate' S. He was one of the funniest guys I've ever known. He taught me the best part of Spanish ;)

There were others where I remember what they looked like but can't remember their names all these years later. 

I learned how to really cook at R. Fish. Even today I can trace my cooking roots back to the menu there. We made the absolute best clam chowder that has ever existed in the world. Sorry Mo's but yours doesn't hold a candle to the now long gone R. Fish perfect chowder. R. Fish was also the home of an incredible all purpose seasoned butter that I can't duplicate to this day (if anyone reads this and remembers the recipe, please comment!) There were other things we had down too. The calamari was always perfect, the mesquite wood fire pit was where almost everything was cooked and the Rockefeller was on point! 

Yeah, good old R. Fish. I was really sad to see it was no longer there during one of my frequent visits to back home. The city just wasn't quite the same after that....