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IN THE KITCHEN
On any given Friday evening the lively crowd jam-packed into Federal Hill's Cross Street Market could make you think that they must be givng something away in there at Nick's Oyster Bar! It seems like half of Baltimore is on hand enjoying the "cold ones" and feasting on the sushi, the fresh seafood and the raw bar delights.
It's early on a Sunday morning. Cross Street Market is closed. The crowds are gone, the counters are gleaming, the floors freshly scrubbed. The air is still, cool and moist. It's Tommy's day to catch up on book work, ordering and planning. A genial man with an easy, wide-open smile, his good-humored exclamation breaks the stillness as he sweeps his arm in a big circle... "My life is here, my childhood, my heart -and all my money too. Ha! That's why I love it! -I gotta love it!" Although Nick's opened up in Cross Street 35 years ago, the Chagouris fish mongering business started a generation earlier when his grandfather and his great uncle opened Matthews & Chagouris Seafood in a stall in the old Lexington Market in the 20's. Tommy's grandparents came from Sparta, and like so many immigrant families, they built their business on the long hours and hard work of every able-bodied family member -young and old. World War II forced them to close when two of their sons were sent off to fight. When Tommy's dad, Nick, returned from the war he worked at Armco Steel and moonlighted at Fadley's Seafood in Lexington Market. In 1970, Nick Chagouris opened his own business in Hollins Market, in the neighborhood we now know as Sowebo. "When someone asks me what college I went to, I tell them: 'Hollins Market!'" Tommy laughs. After a couple years at Hollins, Nick bought the stall at Cross Street and called it Nick's Inner Harbor Seafood. "I have the original Bill of Sale for the business. He bought it for a thousand dollars, gave the man $100 and paid him $100 a month until it was paid off." With three sons to help him run it, the business grew. As neighboring stalls became available, Nick's expanded. "We were one of the largest fish businesses in Baltimore for many, many years. We did wholesale as well as retail. It got so big that we were almost like bankers -with this enormous cash flow thing going on. " Nick passed away in 1987 and the next decade was a tough one for Tommy. "My father had held everything together. My brothers drifted off to Texas and did their own things, and I didn't really know what I was doing... Everything was changing, the seafood business, the neighborhood, the Market itself. I finally understood that I had to change too if I was going to stay in business. Over the course of several years I phased out the wholesale, the retail, and now we are Nick's Oyster Bar -a restaurant!" An early step towards re-inventing the business was the addition of a sushi bar. Sushi chef Tony Purisima came up with the idea and kept suggesting it despite Tommy's lack of enthusiasm: "I was convinced it would never work. Who is going to come into a fish market and eat sushi?!? Three times he approached me and the third time I said, 'OK, I'll give you the fish but everything else you'll have to provide.' Now I understand that Tony must have been sent to me from God... I was one of the first guys to sell sushi here in Baltimore and it was an instant hit!" Tommy's also got some of the best and most entertaining shuckers around at his raw bar counter, like his lead shucker George Hastings who won 2nd place recently in the international shucking competition in Ireland. Building on the popularity of the raw bar, Tommy hosts the Baltimore Oyster Bash annually at Nick's. "JJ McDonnell, who we've been doing business with since the days of my grandfather, is my partner in this. We have eight varieties of raw oysters donated from the oysters growers associated with JJ McDonnell. We invite other restaurants, like Oceanaire, McCormick & Schmick's, and the Blue Sea Grill to get involved and prepare their oyster specialties and we have wine parings and so forth. All to raise money for a worthwhile cause. Last year we gave to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation," he's proud to explain. In another major expansion of his business, Tommy opened Nick's Fish House next to the Hanover Street bridge in 2004. He originally thought he'd be working there most of the time. "But I realized that it's here at Cross Street that I really want to be. My heart is over here. I need to be here." he insists. "I'm the 'plate-up guy,' and I'm a perfectionist too. If I see a spot on a tomato I'm ready to strangle somebody!" Nick's Oyster Bar www.NicksOysterBar.com 1065 South Charles Street 410.685.2020 Monday-Thursday: 11am-10 pm (Sushi until 6:30pm) Friday & Saturday: 11am-10pm Sunday: 11am-6pm |
