Coastal Seafoods Dungeness Crabs
Dungeness Crabs from Coastal Seafoods
Have you been a serious buyer of fish in the Twin Cities at any point since 1981? Then you know the original Coastal Seafoods location in Minneapolis. The way you have to wedge yourself in to the tiny space when the crowds pack in on the good grilling days, the way you can never quite see everything on the jam-packed dry shelves because of the throngs. Well, take a picture next time you're in, because the tiny little market that could is about to be the tiny market that was—Coastal Seafoods about to start construction on a new space across the street that's eight times bigger.
Coastal Seafoods new location exterior before construction
The new location's exterior, before construction.
Hopefully by this summer, they'll move over the wholesale operation, known as Fortune Fish & Gourmet, after the Chicago-based company that purchased the original Coastal Seafoods in 2016. By fall or early winter, the retail operation, still known as Coastal Seafoods, will open in the new location. (The transition should be seamless—locking the door on the old place one evening and opening in the new spot the next morning—so don't worry about your holiday fish plans being interrupted.) The new space is a little hard to describe, even though it's simply across the street from Coastal, but if you've been to United Noodles (and its ramen superstar UniDeli) you'll be familiar with it. You know how to get to United Noodles you drive down an alley? It's the building you drive past, with the nice parking lot in the front. (It's the former home of the wholesale supplier W.W. Johnson Meat, if you're restaurant old school.)
I toured the space to find out what it's going to mean for local eaters. For one thing, it's going to mean a very large fish shop, probably something like 1,200 sq. ft. when all is said and done, with another 3,000 sq. ft. for retail prep, classrooms, and such. Fortune also has a massive wholesale catalog of non-fish items like small-producer olive oils and vinegars, Spanish Jamón Ibérico, Spanish sheep's milk cheeses, Zingerman's cream cheeses, and enough other products to fill an inch-thick catalog. Expect this new Coastal to be one of the biggest high-end selections of grocery items we've seen to-date in the Twin Cities.
Coastal Seafoods counter
But that's just the beginning!
The new 40,000-square-foot facility will radically expand what Fortune, the dominant Chicago fine-fish supplier, can bring to this market. Instead of a dozen oysters, they'll have the space to bring in and store 40 varieties, and they'll add more specialty items—like fish from "dock-to-dish" individual boats in Alaska, and species we haven't seen in this market before, from places like New Zealand and Japan. "We've been working out of closets and hallways—this is actual space," Chris Blankenbaker, Fortune's Director of Corporate Development, told me. This new facility will be state-of-the-art, with full refrigeration capabilities, and room to store and cut fish in the cold. "Ice is everything in fish," Blankenbaker told me. Fortune's president Jon Novak told me that as the major supplier to Whole Foods and one of the suppliers to the co-ops, the expansion means that grocery store fish-buyers in the Twin Cities will see a greater array of options, and of course Coastal St. Paul customers should also experience a much larger inventory. This could be a regional game-changer—this new larger and more innovative Minneapolis hub will allow Fortune to expand into every city within a day's drive: Rochester, Duluth, Fargo, Des Moines, and Sioux City. This could be significant in your Spanish Iberico ham and oyster bar and dock-to-dish universe.
Coastal Seafoods red snapper, whole croaker, whole whiting
This may also be a game-changer for local Minnesota food producers. Fortune already distributes local Minnesota products in its Chicagoland home base, including Ames Farm Honey, Redhead Creamery, and Shepherd's Way cheeses, and this expansion and added staff—they're hiring!—should allow them to take on more products for distribution. If you go to work for them, you might learn to cut a fish just like this Fortune employee who put on a Go-Pro and filleted a tuna.
Also, Fortune might put a big golden fish neon sign out where you can see it from highway 55 or the light rail. That would be fun, because a golden fish is Fortune's symbol, and a golden fishy time is what it looks like we're going to be having around here pretty soon.
Sign up for our newsletter to get inside access to the latest local food and dining buzz.
