Monday, November 23, 2009
Fish on Fire shuts down, seafood restaurant on Belt Line in Dallas says bye
Owner Sam Solomon is looking around to open another place, maybe in Coppell.
Fish on Fire, the seafood restaurant on Belt Line Road just west of Preston, closed earlier this month.
Owner Sam Solomon, who founded Aw Shucks on Greenville Avenue and is also involved with Big Shucks, gave it his all but after five years decided to throw in the towel.
"It started out well but the chemistry there was just awful," he says. "About 50% of the problem was the location. Before me, Taco Bueno was there a long time, and they did well until that Exxon, which used to be a corner service station, became a monster and blocked most of the view. The Taco Bueno people told me they lost 40% of their business overnight. I should've known. Any place I'd ever done, when I was building it, people would wander in out of curiosity to see what I was doing, but at this place, I never had any of that. That was the first clue I wasn’t gonna do well."
If there were any question it was doomed, the building was hit by lightning not once but twice, knocking out all his electricity systems.
"It was a bad luck place," Solomon says. He's looking at opening another place in Coppell; he already has his eye on a sweet location.
"It's right on the main drag, and it doesn't suffer from any of the negatives," he says.
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Pavel Lishin, says:
Damnit! My boss kept telling me how good this place was, and I never got a chance to eat there. And I don't even know where Coppell is.
Verified
2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Christin Richard, says:
The last time that I dined at this venue it was obvious that it was slated for demise. The management seemed sincere in their service and conscientiousness, but the venue as a whole failed to earnestly connect with its customers with 'that special something'.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
JW Richard, says:
The food sucked. Sorry.
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John McClelland, says:
It was ok but I found it too expensive so hadn't been there in several years.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Pavel Lishin, says:
When I open up a restaurant I'll make sure to order two extra crates of 'special something'.
Or just leave some mayo out in the sun, whatever.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
James Scott, says:
How is choosing a crappy location "bad luck"? Sounds to me like a bad business decision, especially if he knew the Bueno lost 40% of its business due to the Exxon?
Oh, I heard the food stunk too, but I can't corraborate that claim.
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Michael Schaefer, says:
The food was mediocre at best. But I will miss this place. They had some great music there for a while. Once they canceled the live music, I never went back. I wish them well with the new location. If they start having live music again, I'll stop by. Otherwise, there are lots of places to eat.
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Christin Richard, says:
When I dined there with a group of friends who lauded its reputation, we were disappointed that the management had decided to serve their usual bar food in the absence of live entertainment. In the manager’s professed aspiration to convert the ambiance toward a more family-oriented environment, he inadvertently turned it into an empty restaurant -- and perhaps that amounted to the other 50% of the equation for (location + bad luck).
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leslien, says:
Bad location? He's delusional. Yeah, you couldn't see it from Preston - but it was HIGHLY visible from Beltline. Thousands of cars every day drove right by it. They don't seem to have any trouble finding the Luby's right next door, I notice.
(And why in five years he didn't put a big sign up on the building on the Beltline side beats the heck out of me. Still, it was easy to spot.)
The real problems were: 1) no "neighborhood joint" vibe at all, 2) service that would have been typical for a Burger King or Jack In The Box and worst of all - 3) mediocre food.
Extruded tasteless hushpuppies, bland, cooked-to-death vegetables, highly ordinary fish, all over-priced and served with a hearty helping of employee disinterest.
I think the way the owner closed the business - absolutely no signage on the door saying it was closed permanently, the place just "went dark" from one day to the next - is quite consistent with the way he ran it day in, day out.
Meh.
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2 months, 1 week agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
John McClelland, says:
I will give them props for knowing what birch beer is.
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Egorsti, says:
Small portions, merely adequate food and overpricing may have had SOMETHING to do with it!
Anonymous
2 months, 1 week agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
What do you think?