Sorry everyone for the long wait! I’m aiming for two paintings a month at least, but it’s been well over a month since my last post. Life finds a way to get in the way of such things. But alas, I’m back in the saddle and I love this story - I recorded Chris Nelson telling it to me on the phone, and transcribed it. It’s kind of a life story of what brought him to opening up his own fish market called “Brookies.” It’s in St. Louis Park, so if you’re in the Twin Cities, consider stopping by his store and getting some fresh fish for your next meal! Alright, here’s the tale:
“Fish Saved My Life” by Chris Nelson
Fish saved my life. I was going nowhere in 1997. I was looking at jail time in Brainerd, Minnesota. I’d been kicked out of college. I went there to play baseball and I never even got on the baseball field. I was selling drugs, receiving stolen property. I was young and dumb, and the blessing was that I finally got caught a number of times, and that I started working at Morey’s Seafood Market and Grill in January of 1998 making eight dollars an hour. I never looked back.
Morey’s had a retail store and a little cafe that wrapped around it. I worked for a couple named Steve and Ellen who kept the name Morey’s after buying the two retail stores - the one in Motley and the one in Brainerd, about ten years prior to that. Steve had worked for Morey’s Seafood International, but said, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I just want to buy the retail stores that Morey’s doesn’t seem to care about.”
Steve and Ellen took a chance on me. They knew I had some jail time over my head. I had to go do something like a 20-day stint. Nothing I’m proud of, but it doesn’t define who I am. It helped shape who I am today, though. I just fell in love with the whole seafood market thing. I already liked specialty foods - my dad being from San Francisco. He would go back a couple times a year and come back with olives and salami. I’m partially Italian and grew up on this little hobby farm in the middle of the woods between Nimrod and Sebeka. That’s where my dad put his roots down and had five kids in the woods with no electricity. But we all turned out alright.
That job saved my life, though. A couple times I had to do work-leave where I’d go work at Morey’s and go back to the jailhouse to sleep. I’d bring back fried fish to the guards and they’d let me sneak cigarettes in and sell those. But within a year I was assistant manager, living up in Nisswa at the time. I was fishing every day. Selling fish every day. I was going up to Bemidji a lot to fish and I’d go to Blacksmith Lake to fish for trout. And I’m bouncing around from Chicago to San Diego. I’m going to all these food shows everywhere. I’m just soaking in this life of being a fishmonger and specialty food person.
I spent seven years there before coming down to the Twin Cities. I was a chef for a little while for a real rude, crude person, so I got the heck out of dodge and went to Hawaii for a couple years and did fish work. Then I moved back to be closer to family with my wife at the time. I knew I wanted to get back into retail and I started working at Coastal Seafoods. Then for the next 16, 17 years, I worked production at the retail store. I became the only sales rep for all five states it served. I’d drive around maintaining 700 accounts. I worked for another great person - Suzanne - who started Coastal back in ‘81.
Then fast forward to 2021. I’d been working for Fortune Fish and Gourmet five years - Suzanne sold Coastal to someone outside of Chicago. The job was fun, I was challenged. I was looking at a whole portfolio of gourmet goods, selling to the top chefs in the city. But I just felt like a spoke in that corporate wheel and it was never enough. I was doing a quarter million a week in sales for this company, and my bucket wasn’t getting filled at all. I was falling out of love with what I was doing. I wasn’t allowed to touch fish and go in the cooler anymore.
I knew I was done working primarily with chefs and I needed to get back to the at-home cook. So I took a major leap of faith and put everything in my life into an SBA loan, refinanced and borrowed enough money to open a humble little fish shop in St. Louis Park. I called it “Brookies.”
It’s great dealing with all the fish. All the wild-caught fish. You have to be ready to be able to pivot and be kind of malleable to what the market is and what Mother Nature gives you. A lot of commercial vessels have a good batting average but sometimes they don’t get the amount they need. If a customer is unhappy that we don’t have a fish they want, I tell them, “Hey, did you go walleye fishing this weekend? Oh yeah? Did you limit out? No? Did you catch any at all? No? Well, that’s fishing. I’m sorry blue nose bass from New Zealand is on your menu, but we’ll have to try again in a couple days. But I have striped bass from Maryland if you want.”
I think back to who I was and how things could have turned out. Early on at Morey’s when I still had a little jail time to do, I was living with a couple dudes north of Brainerd by Merrifield. Good people. One of my buddies comes home with mushrooms one Sunday night and I’m like, “Alright yeah man, let’s trip tonight!” I got to bed at three and I’m supposed to work at six. My dear friend was waiting for me. He woke me up and said, “You’re going into work Chris, you’re going in. You look like crap.” I said “I’ll call in sick.” But he said “No man. I’ll drive you there.” So I made it to work and I remember Julie who was training me said, “Your eyes are really red.” And I told her, “It’s bad contacts.” I’m glad I got slapped in the face by my buddy and went to work that day. I could have been fired. But the rest is history.
That’s my story. I have a 16-year-old son, a 13-year-old daughter, and live out here in New Hope and have a little retail shop. Maybe someday there’ll be a second one. We’re just a small team of six who are really, really proud of what we stand for. The only things we take seriously are the fish and the community. We have some regulars that come by five, six times a week. We have one regular that comes by like two times a day, just shucks an oyster in the back or whatever. We keep the bathrooms clean and say hello to everyone, making sure they’re noticed and feel valued.
I’ve stumbled many times since I got my start, but I told myself, “Don’t ever go back to jail. And surround yourself with people who genuinely care about you.” And I’ve got a great family and a great network of friends that’s been blossoming for years. I love dealing with fish. And I love fishing.
You know the old cliche: A bad day of fishing still beats a good day at the office, right?
Great story and we don't ever go through Brainerd or Motley without a stop at Morey's. Brookies just got bookmarked and will definitely be taking a run down there to check them out. Certainly sounds like my kind of place.
Great story!