Calumet Fisheries to reopen Saturday after devastating fire

Calumet Fisheries, the beloved Southeast Side seafood restaurant, reopens Saturday with new renovations — but with the same menu that Chicagoans have loved for generations.

The restaurant, 3259 E. 95th St., closed temporarily after an electrical fire in November. But after months of rebuilding, the restaurant will open its doors at 9 a.m. Saturday, co-owner Mark Kotlick told the Sun-Times Thursday.

“It has been a long and stressful time. We look forward to seeing everyone and serving the community,” Kotlick said.

Last year's fire was “devastating,” Kotlick said.

“We’ve never really had anything stop us for more than a day here,” Kotlick said. “I couldn’t let the business deteriorate after 76 years in my family.”

Calumet Fisheries opened in 1928 and is one of the few remaining smokehouses in Illinois. The restaurant's menu features two sides: fried and smoked, with dishes such as frog legs and trout.

But the house specialty is smoked shrimp.

“We are still a fried shrimp and smoked fish company. You enter. You are looking at our menu board. It will look exactly like it did before,” Kotlick said.

The restaurant has been ready for a few weeks and was awaiting approval from the Ministry of Health, which it received on Thursday. After the fire, Calumet Fisheries now has a “completely redone interior,” with a new menu board and open kitchen.

Because it is a takeout location, customers often sit on the sidewalk or on the tailgate of their car. They can also sit at the two picnic tables outside near the 95th Street Bridge, where they can admire the boats passing by on the Calumet River.

“It’s like a little party there,” Kotlick said.

The restaurant also brought in new equipment: Everything a restaurant needs, they got it, Kotlick said. Before the renovations, the cold rooms were “old,” Kotlick said.

“Cold rooms, refrigerators, freezers, scales, fryers, fire suppression systems,” Kotlick said. “Everything is new. It's awesome.

Saturday will be a soft opening, so employees can get used to the crowds and the new equipment, Kotlick said.

But eventually, Calumet Fisheries plans to have a grand opening with discounted food, shirt giveaways and other festivities — probably in July or August.

The restaurant paid most of its employees during the renovations so they could return to work.

“We’re going to have pretty much the same faces that everyone is used to,” he said.

The family is delighted with the reopening. It is an emblematic place that has belonged to the family since 1948.

“My Facebook page is out of the woods and people are dying to come back,” Kotlick said. “It’s really comforting.”