Down on the Texas Coast, most of the seafood restaurants will cook your catch for you if you bring it in already cleaned.

If there was a restaurant in the DFW area that would cook your bass, crappie, sandbass, or catfish.....would you bring your catch in and have them cook it?

I personally don't like the setup and cleanup for a fish fry at home, especially if there is only a couple of us eating. So I am trying to find a local restaurant that would be willing to take this on like they do down on the Coast.

I contacted the health department and there is a little extra work they have to do in order to provide the service....things like advertise on the menu, have a plan for segregating the prep area and a few more bureaucratic things that probably have to be done.

The places I have tried down on the Coast charge between $7 to $9 a pound. Some places include hushpuppies in the price per pound, but basically you buy the sides like french fries and drinks. It's a win-win situation for everyone and it's amazing how many people 1 pound of fish will feed when it's fried up.

If you are like me, you probably have a freezer full of fish that more often than not ends up getting freezer burn because you didn't cook it within a year of catching it.

In order to pull this off, I am going to have to convince a restaurant that this would be profitable for them. It would have to be a place that would see this as an opportunity to set themselves apart and offer something that no one else does.







Here is just one example of a restaurant in Port-A.





Here is some more examples of places that cook your catch in Corpus.
http://www.visitcorpuschristitx.org/trip-ideas/must-see/cook-your-catch/



Would you take your catch to a restaurant in the DFW area if there was such a place?

Do you have any recommendations of a place that might be willing to provide the service if I ask them?









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Wonderful concept. I would definitely be down there. My thought is a Wild Game Dinner Club. What a great place that would be. Bring your own bottle too.

Location would be key for a concept like this... First ask yourself how many people actually eat fresh water fish? I think a better idea would be to just open a restaurant/pub where you sale fresh water fish (crappie, bass, channel cat, sandbass, perch) and figure out a fish farm you can purchase them from to keep the product uniform, so your guest get the same quality every time they visit. Homemade hush puppies are a must and serve the coldest scooner in town! I can go on for days on this topic...

Now it would be real badass to have a good size pond behind the restaurant where dads and families can catch fish and just walk up with their catch... Stock the pond full of 1-3lb fish... Set up lights like a baseball field around it... Haha

A plate of fried catfish is already cheap and readily available. This will never work.

The appeal of the "we cook your catch" thing at the coast is that people are on vacation and often don't have everything they need to cook their fresh ocean catch and do it justice. Also the things you can catch down there aren't always readily available (commercially fished or farmed) for cheap on every menu in town.

Not trying to be a downer, but I wouldn't waste your time trying to convince some restaurant that this is a good idea.

I find it interesting that it would be legal to do this with freshwater game fish. Because there is a big black market for some gamefish (primarily crappie). I'm quite sure this would be illegal here in LA. And I know it is definitely illegal to sell gamefish (in LA) and to allow a restaurant to prepare an individual's fish would make it easier for the restaurant to use illegally obtained fish. So I would find it amazing that it would be legal to do this with freshwater gamefish in TX.

I would think the loophole here, would be that you are not selling the fish. You are giving the restaurant the fish, and they are charging 9 bucks a pound to prepare it. I like the idea! I'm sure I'll offend a lot of people with this comment, but there are a lot of people, myself included, who won't eat catfish because they view it as a rough fish.

Nice concept, but I don't see this working out.

But I do give you and A for effort.

Texas defines blue, channel, and flatheads as "game fish", and not rough fish. Don't know how much catfish you've eaten, but I know that I would eat catfish well before I ever ate a bass of any species.

Disagree.

With? That Texas classifies blues, channels, and flatheads as "game fish", or the eating catfish over bass? Because one is a fact, and the other isn't. I know lots of people who prefer bass as well, especially striper. Just not this guy. With a possible exception of sea bass....now that's some good eatin too.

Sorry. I like bass more than catfish. Definitely not wanting to argue. Lol.

Ya, me neither. Thought that's what you meant. Kinda hard to decipher on the interwebs. All I can say is the same thing I'm sure 100 others have told you...."well, you haven't tried MY catfish"...lol

I could see this concept being very popular in a restaurant ON a popular lake somewhere. So, at our country club, every Thursday night in the summer they have "steak night". People bring their own steaks, and the club grills them, and also provides baked potatoes, salad, and bread for $6. Bein doin it for years, and it's popular.

I could see a restaurant making this a seasonal thing in an "event" format. Like the night tournaments they have at Ray Hubbard in the summer. Once a week kinda thing.

Lake Fork "Sandbass Fryers"?