DDA in process of evicting Frank Taylorâ€™s Detroit Fish Market

**leland_palmer** · April-26-10, 03:06 PM

Well we knew this was bound to happen sooner or later. Where is Mildred gonna eat now? DDA to Frank Taylor: "You better get my loot!"

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...FREE/100429887

http://detnews.com/article/20100426/METRO/4260389/1361/rss41

**Detroitnerd** · April-26-10, 03:13 PM

I sure am glad our local leaders look at a rock-solid building and see a shaky disaster waiting to happen. Then they look at Frank Taylor and see a solid bet.

**kryptonite** · April-26-10, 03:18 PM

Amusing, isn't Taylor's batting average around .000 by now? Are any of his eateries still open in Detroit? What a loser.

**lafayette** · April-26-10, 03:20 PM

Didn't he own that Sweet Georgia Brown place, too? And didn't it go under, too? Fish Market was open for about five minutes. What the heck business model are these people using when they open these places? It's almost as bad as the Mercury Bar, which was open for, oh, three minutes. Wasn't that because they had 3,000 investors and couldn't get their behind the scenes act together? I just don't understand why people put so much into something that goes under so quickly. You'd think they would handicap the hell outta the fact that we're in a depression in this area, and plan/build/refurbish according to whatever financial gains or lack thereof a good business model will tell them they can or cannot expect. WTF? These aren't guys with a closet and a hotplate opening up a hot dog stand; they're higher end establishments, and they just go up in smoke overnight. I just don't get why they start these in the first place if their businesses are that precarious to begin with, so precarious that they can be out of business that quickly after a very short lifespan.

**English** · April-26-10, 03:49 PM

I like Frank Taylor's establishments for special occasions. A group of friends took me to the Fish Market for a pre-graduation celebration.

It'll be sad to see it close, especially if nothing takes its place.

**Detroitnerd** · April-26-10, 03:51 PM

Breakfast House, after being closed briefly, is still open, yes?

**English** · April-26-10, 05:17 PM

According to the Detroit News article, both the Fish Market and the Breakfast House will close Tuesday.

**Fury13** · April-26-10, 05:23 PM

Seems like Taylor has had some good concepts. Day-to-day management must be the problem.

**REL** · April-26-10, 06:30 PM

Unfortunately, great concepts aren't enough in business.

As for the story, I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you!

**wash_man** · April-26-10, 06:44 PM

I watched channel 7 as Robbie Timmons read this story sitting next to Carolyn Clifford. Must have been awkward.

**R8RBOB** · April-26-10, 06:45 PM

It's sad to hear that most Detroit restaurants are biting the dust but it's the sign of the times. No one has no money.

To put this in perspective; when I first arrived in the Bay Area back in late 2000, I was staying in Palo Alto and they had a string of restaurants on this avenue called University Ave. and every night I was there the restaurants were filled. There was a lot of foot traffic and people were spending money in these expensive restaurants.

Well, the dot-com bubble was busting and everyone was losing their jobs. People stopped going to those expensive-ass restaurants and was slowing leaving the area. I went back to that part of Palo Alto a year or so later and it was a ghost town. Hell, even the Burger King closed up and turned into a pizza joint. Detroit is losing out because their are just a large number of people not working and can't justify spending 50 or 60 bucks for dinner and drinks.

**DLife** · April-26-10, 09:18 PM

I could make it work too with free loans from the DDA for a couple years.

**REL** · April-26-10, 10:15 PM

Did we miss the part about the restaurant pulling in over $3,100,000 in gross revenue?

LodgeDodger · April-26-10, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by REL

Did we miss the part about the restaurant pulling in over $3,100,000 in gross revenue?

And then we wonder why it's taking so long for the IRS and Feds to build their cases...

**Goose** · April-27-10, 12:51 AM

money

laundering

**English** · April-27-10, 01:57 AM

Originally Posted by REL

Did we miss the part about the restaurant pulling in over $3,100,000 in gross revenue?

I missed it, but someone told me on Facebook. All I have to say is: Dang.

Sigh. So disappointed! Can't we please have some honest businesspeople with deep pockets and a love for the city?

**R8RBOB** · April-27-10, 07:16 AM

From what I read it looks like Mr. Frank Taylor was setting himself up for failure.

I applaud him for opening up restaurants in Detroit but he put all his eggs in one basket. He had too many restaurants in one geographic location. His restaurants were not only competing against other restaurants but his own establishments, cutting into his profit margin.

One of the problems that Detroit has is that other than downtown, the only other area where people could go for entertainment/dining purposes is the New Center area. That's it. So someone like Taylor is restricted to operate in those areas. Not everyone is going to drive downtown to eat, to bar hop so the goal is to bring your business to them. To the eastside, to the westside, to the southwest side, to the north end, etc... It is not going to happen because Detroit is a poor, fractured city. Many neighborhoods are undesirable locations so put a Detroit Fish Market on the corner of Schoolcraft and Greenfield wouldn't be taken seriously because the neighborhood. That's how Detroit is.

**Detroitnerd** · April-27-10, 08:28 AM

I never met Frank Taylor, so I don't know him personally, but anecdotal stories from vendors suggest that if he'd had a serious accountant in charge, he'd have paid his bills and not overextended his mini-empire. Also, his restaurants always strove for grandness, and, as another poster pointed out, the dining scene has long been headed toward more casual, comfort-oriented dining, such as Slows, which is always packed, or even Steve's Soul Food, which really packs 'em in at lunch. Combine Frank Taylor's sensibilities with his day-to-day payment issues, and then add all that free money from the authority, and I believe you have a recipe for disaster.

In the wake of all this, what's going to happen with that grand space in Harmonie Park? Wasn't his restaurant sort of the anchor to all the new Paradise Valley-keyed stuff going in there?

**detroitbob** · April-27-10, 09:06 AM

Having eaten at the Fishmarket both for lunch and dinner, I found it to be, overall, a good experience both food and service. The concept worked and it probably would have made it under any other management team. Too bad Matt Prentice of someother food service company couldn't do something similar.

**Cincinnati_Kid** · April-27-10, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by wash_man

I watched channel 7 as Robbie Timmons read this story sitting next to Carolyn Clifford. Must have been awkward.

I feel ya on that one. Would have probably been worse if Clifford had to do it.

Toolbox · April-27-10, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by detroitbob

Having eaten at the Fishmarket both for lunch and dinner, I found it to be, overall, a good experience both food and service. The concept worked and it probably would have made it under any other management team. Too bad Matt Prentice of someother food service company couldn't do something similar.

Matt Prentice cried that Detroit was tough when he closed up shop at Woodward and Mack. He then opened Coach Insignia soon after and changed to a reduced schedule soon after opening.

Many other resturants work well in Detroit when they are run properly, ie Atlas, Southern Fires, Slow's....

**REL** · April-27-10, 06:43 PM

I guess what I was trying to say, was:

This isn't a case of "business was poor". It is a case of "poorly done business". Likely, with the intent to steal and defraud. I'm just shaking my head because Mr. Taylor already had a track-record of this.

**thecarl** · April-27-10, 07:13 PM

i always wanted to go to detroit breakfast house after church. i remember the long lines to get in on sunday mornings. those shortened consistently, over time, to nothing. i checked out the menu online, and with my wife and four-year-old daughter, it would be close to $40 for breakfast. the location is prime and they would have done better business by creating a more reasonably-priced menu. it seemed like they banked on the sunday crowd to keep them afloat.

**Zacha341** · April-27-10, 07:41 PM

Yes, I don't mind spending money and tipping well on a nice meal and environs, but I hate that "subsidy" price of some downtown restaurants like that breakfast place. Ugh... Like how ugly it got at the Sweet Georgia Browns at the end. Most of these places remain open well after the quality is gone and they're scrapping the bottoms of the GFS cans. I have it in my head of small portions, indifferent service and high prices.

Originally Posted by thecarl

i always wanted to go to detroit breakfast house after church. i remember the long lines to get in on sunday mornings. those shortened consistently, over time, to nothing. i checked out the menu online, and with my wife and four-year-old daughter, it would be close to $40 for breakfast. the location is prime and they would have done better business by creating a more reasonably-priced menu. it seemed like they banked on the sunday crowd to keep them afloat.

**cman710** · April-27-10, 08:13 PM

My wife and I ate at the Breakfast House a year and a half ago and had a nice experience. While the prices were high for Detroit, it was very well done on the inside and seemed like the kind of place that survived well on weekend out-of-towners looking for an easy breakfast choice. If the financial management had only been better, it sounds like the restauarnt would have survived the recession.