LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Mitchell's Fish Market's Atlantic Cod Shang Hai
Here's one reason why I don't often review corporate chain eateries: They're generally predictable. Even the good ones don't change much, unless the stockholders scream for change, and nothing good generally comes of that.
Take Mitchell's Fish Market: I last reviewed it in November 2001, when it and its then-corporate partner Martini Italian Bistro had just arrived as anchor restaurants the new Summit shopping center. Both restaurants were pretty good, so i made the trek, checked them out, and said nice things about them.
Now 13 years have passed. Wow, how did that happen? Why not take a fresh look? And how about that! Not much has changed. Mitchell's is still an attractive destination. Its bland suburban "power center" surroundings still give way to an interior that's a fair replica of an upscale seaside eatery, with a glass-enclosed retail fish counter on one side of the dining room. Even the pricing doesn't seem to have escalated beyond reason, with a cod dish that was $14.50 in 2001 going for $17.49 last week.
Mitchell's claims "the best seafood available, delivered daily." That's no difficult chore in Louisville, which despite our inland location has been a seafood-loving town ever since the Civil War, when the L&N used to rush Gulf fish, shrimp and oysters north on express cars filled with seafood and ice.
Now our major UPS hub puts the icing on the (fish) cake. Any seafood restaurant that cares to do so can boast snapping fresh fish. (And, it goes without saying, any seafood restaurant that doesn't care about fresh fish doesn't deserve your business, or mine.)
On the business side, however, things have changed, and more changes are in store. Cameron Mitchell, the Columbus-based mini-chain that brought the restaurants here, didn't last long. It soon turned over the Martini property to its local operators as an indie operation. Then Cameron Mitchell, with its Mitchell's Fish Markets, was sold to the Ruth's Chris Hospitality Group in 2008.
Hit hard by the recession, Mitchell's new management failed to thrive. Nation's Restaurant News recently reported that Ruth's couldn't make Mitchell's work, and has sold off the 16 Mitchell's properties to Houston-based Landry's.
This didn't sound promising. Still, Mitchell's remains locally popular, and seafood is healthy and good, so I wasn't shy about dropping in for dinner with friends.
The verdict? It's not bad. The seafood and fish passed our taste test for freshness, service was fine, and pricing is competitive. If it doesn't rise to a four-star level of excellence, well, few chain eateries and only a handful of locals do. ...
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/mitch ... ains-stays
And in LEO Weekly:
http://www.leoweekly.com/2015/01/mitche ... ins-stays/
Mitchell's Fish Market
The Summit
4031 Summit Plaza Drive
412-1818
http://mitchellsfishmarket.com
Robin Garr's rating: 81 points