This feature was made possible through a partnership with the Milwaukee Public Market, which is celebrating 20 years of making community in our awesome city.

Milwaukee is hardly a place you’d associate with fresh seafood. But, with many thanks to St. Paul Fish Company inside the Milwaukee Public Market at 400 N. Water St., it’s become a destination for luxuries like freshly shucked oysters, Maine-style lobster rolls and affordable lobster dinners.

Interestingly – their seafood legacy – isn’t exactly new.

In 1910, oysters were transported by train in barrels of sawdust to various locales around the nation. Here in Milwaukee, they were transported from the East Coast to C. B. Muench Oyster Company, where Muench distributed them around the Cream City.

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What most people don’t know is that 95 years later the precise location of the C. B. Muench Oyster Co. would become the St. Paul Seafood Co., another purveyor of not only fresh oysters, but one of the biggest selections of seafood in the city.

Decades in the seafood biz

Tim Collins has been in the seafood industry for decades. From the time he was in college, he’d honed his skills working at fisheries in Alaska and Floria. Eventually, he opened Fathom Fish, a wholesaling business that catered to restaurants. Ultimately, that’s how he met his wife Mary Beth, who worked for one of his restaurant customers.

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Together, the two came together and started a little seafood market called Fathom Five, a spot that was ultimately named Red Rock Café & Seafood Market, at 4022 N. Oakland Ave. (now home to Milwaukee Brat House). They brought Mark Weber in as their chef and they ran the place from 1989 until 2001 when they sold the business to another owner. 

Over the next few years, there were successes and failures. A new restaurant. A hopeful job in Mexico... and more. 

And then, Jimmy Pandl – the renowned North Shore restaurateur who also operated Eagan’s, Water Street Deli and Agave Southwestern Grill – approached Tim about operating the seafood business he was opening in the Milwaukee Public Market. Collins, who was commuting to Chicago for a job at the time, decided it would be nice to be back in Milwaukee. So, he agreed. 

“The hardest retailer to get in a public market is a seafood vendor,” notes Tim. “It takes expertise, equipment and the right storage to ensure freshness and safety. The prices can also fluctuate wildly, which can make it difficult to stay competitive.”

But he had been working in the wholesale business for years. So the market and the challenges were all familiar. So were the challenges that came with running a restaurant, an element that had been part of both his and Mary Beth’s careers.

The beginning

When the Market opened in 2005, the area was significantly different than it is now. Cafe Benelux was still nothing more than a storage space and Broadway was still home to a piece of Commission Row. As far as St. Paul Fish Company was concerned, it was a small shop on the East Side of the Market.

“I remember it distinctly,” Tim says. “We opened on the 15th of October. And it was the first day of Stone Crab season.”

There was one fish case and the deli. Collins had brought  in another chef friend, Brian Moran, who assisted them in creating a menu of sandwiches and clam chowder for carry-out. But the business was pretty basic and it had a bit more of a “diner” feel. 

“We were still wholesaling when we opened and that’s really what kept us going for quite a while. Our model was about buying direct, and that allowed us to keep costs low. That’s what kept us in business. Early on, we had live lobster tanks where the oyster bar is now. And we offered lobster dinners for $10.  At the time it was a loss leader, but it brought people in”

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At first, St. Paul Fish brought in more exotic things like escolar, sardines and marlin. But, as the business settled in, people showed a preference for things like walleye, perch, swordfish, salmon and tuna. But regardless of the selection, the case was always filled with fresh fish, never frozen (the one exception being shrimp).

“I remember watching the Market develop,” says Mary Beth. “My brother and I grew up Downtown, so it was great to see the whole area, along with the Third Ward grow.” 

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As part of the expansion, they opened up the oyster bar. Then, when Sheridan’s Wine moved out of the market, they added a full-fledged dining area and restaurant. Ultimately, that led to the creation of one of St. Paul’s most popular items: the lobster roll.

Tim says it took them at least six months to find the right bread. But once they did and they launched the popular sandwich, it was a hit.

“We go through 60 to 70,000 lobster rolls every year,” he says, adding that they also sell at least 7,000 oysters a week at the oyster bar. 

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As the opportunity arose, they also opened the Palapa Bar, which is managed by Mary Beth’s brother Patrick, who joined the business in 2013.

“The original bar had 8 seats and it was open seasonally,” Tim recalls. “And now, it has 27 seats, a complete enclosure and it’s open all year round.” 

Big dumb stuff

As St. Paul’s Fish Company grew, so did the collection of interesting items on the eastern end of the Public Market. 

First, it was the crashed plane that had "followed them" over from Red Rock Cafe. For a while it had a sign on it that said “Fresh Fish Flown in Daily”.

About five years in, Tim says they put a big crab on the rooftop of the market. “You could see it from the highway,” he says, noting that eventually they made him take it down to avoid causing distractions on the highway.

“The big marlin came from a restaurant in Chicago,” he recalls. “We put it on a trailer and strapped it down so that we could drive it up to Milwaukee. And then, when we got it here,  it woudn’t fit through the door, so we had to cut the top off of it to get him in…” 

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And, of course, in 2014, they caught a big one. The neon-outlined, pipe-smoking fisherman with his catch draped over his shoulder that had been sitting atop the Fish Brothers Fish Shanty restaurant in Port Washington for decades came to rest in the Public Market. 

The same is true of the mid-1960s vintage sculpture by artist Adolph Thiele that also depicts a man with fish. It was a decorative element inside Fish Brothers for just as long.

When asked where the ideas came for all of the paraphernalia, Tim just smiles. “I like ‘big dumb stupid stuff’ he says.

Big stuff, good people

But the Milwaukee Public Market and the St. Paul Fish Company have become much more than just destinations that sell fresh fish and display big pieces of unexpected art. They’ve become one of the most popular gathering places in the city,

“The market is a hang-out spot for a lot more people,” says Mary Beth. “And it’s a destination for more tourists than ever before.

Tim nods “For tourists in this area, the Public Market and the two square miles around it have literally become Milwaukee… And this corner” he says as he points out to Broadway and St. Paul, “Is the busiest pedestrian corner in the city.”

But it’s not just the people who visit the market who’ve made it the place that it’s become.

“Our success has so much to do with the people that we work with,” Mary Beth says. “I almost tear up to see this machine working so well, and it’s comprised of little more than just great people who work together. The humans are truly the most rewarding thing… and for Tim, the emphasis has always been on a happy staff, rather than a perfect staff.” 

Tim’s face lights up in response. “People almost always rise to the occasion if you give them responsibility,” he says. “And tomorrow is another day. It’s all about pulling through.”