The menu at B.I. Fish Company changed into 15 years in the making. All that time, Jess Goldwater, co-founder of the new Bainbridge restaurant, went about his lifestyles and career inside the tech global, having a pipe dream of the Hawaiian fish stands and seafood joints he’d come to be enamored with even as traveling the Aloha State.
Why now not right here, he thought, “Why no longer convey that lower back-to-basics culinary philosophy home to the Northwest?”
Upon moving from Seattle to his wife’s place of origin of Bainbridge three years ago, he met Tad Mitsui, head chef at Heyday Farm and supervisor of Heyday Market. He confided his dream: a Hawaii-style informal seafood eating place focusing on exceptional fish virtually prepared.
Flash forward to in advance this month, and the time for having a pipe dream became at last over. The eating place (located at 4569 Lynwood Center Road NE, a stone’s throw from the historic Lynwood Theatre) became officially open; it was time to prepare dinner.
“We’re pretty excited,” Goldwater said. “I changed into clever sufficient to realize I had the right enterprise feel, but no actual eating place enjoy so I knew you bought to discover an appropriate associate.” It’s a partnership embodied by using the eating place itself, philosophically and physically.
B.I. Fish Company is surely placed inner a recently remodeled, enlarged model of Heyday Market, presenting an elevated menu of pre-prepared meals and being run as a joint operation in the actual area that changed into once-storied island eater Ruby’s. That’s especially ironic for Mitsui, as he worked there as a chef once upon a time.
Now, though Mitsui’s doing enterprise in the specific identical architectural parameters as yesteryear, the order of the day and the studies he brings to the kitchen, after spending time working in lodges and for iconic Northwest chef Tom Douglas, are much exclusive.
“What this turned out as changed into a mix of our thoughts of what we desired to do,” he said. “Jess had a concept for the [BI] Fish Co., and I had a concept to do more prepared foods for the market, so we melded them together.”
“We type of got here up with this philosophy that with restaurants, they may be a couple of components,” Goldwater agreed. “I assume our partnership surely labored from the beginning due to the fact Tad’s style of cooking on the farm has continually been preserve it easy; certainly easy however first-rate ingredients, prepare dinner them flawlessly and then let the elements do the work. That’s the philosophy here as properly: Find the hottest seafood you may, prepare dinner it certainly and perfectly and people things simply regarded to combination collectively certainly properly.”
Thus they sooner or later settled in this new hybrid operation, a three-sided save/eatery made of B.I. Fish Company, the traditional offerings of the farm shop, and the brand new and progressed menu of Heyday Market: rotisserie roasted meats, warm meals (roasts, stews, soups, and so forth), hot and cold facet dishes, prepared salads, and more on a revolving basis.
“[It’s] sort of a one-forestall store for that organized meal whilst you’re on your manner home from paintings or football practice or eat it here,” Goldwater stated. “People in widespread appear to love the food. They like the concept, they like the two ideas that we’ve were given going right here, and they seem to be operating pretty well collectively.
The farm store hours are 10 a.M. To 6 p.M. Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.M. To 5 p.M. Saturday and 10 a.M. To 4 p.M. Sunday. Visit www.Heydayfarm.Com/store to study greater. B.I. Fish Company is open for lunch from 11 a.M. To 2:30 p.M. And for dinner from 5 to 8:30 p.M. Tuesday through Sunday.
Menu options encompass a clean fish plate (preference of fish and preparation fashion with rice, fries or salad; market fee), fish tacos (a -taco plate with rice fries or salad for $14, or à la carte tacos, $5 each), 3-piece Panko-crusted fish-and-chips with fries and coleslaw ($15), Hawaiian-fashion poke served in a bowl on top of rice and crowned with seaweed salad ($18) or in a lettuce “taco” plate ($16), and a fish sandwich served with rice.
