ARTS & CULTURE
KANSAN.COM
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FISH HOUSE FROM
PAGE 4
O'Boyle is keen on sharing his knowledge, too. Both Madeira and O'Boyle aim to share the knowledge they have of seafood with their staff, knowing that is maybe the best way that information can be conveyed to the public.
"In my opinion, in the Midwest, it's meat and potatoes, so how do you get people to try other things?" Madeira said. "They don't trust seafood in the last 30 years... but we're wide open with what we're doing."
"Knowledge is the biggest thing," said O'Boyle, who is in his first executive chef position at age 25. "Teaching the public in seafood — we are in the Midwest, but it's
It's easy to chalk that touch of Lawrence up to just how ingrained
really easy to get straightfrom-the-ocean seafood nowadays."
For as much of the Fish House's products that are imported, the restaurant is still finding ways to connect to the community, too.
Much of the produce O'Boyle uses is vended by local farms, and he occasionally uses products from the Lawrence Farmers Market to craft something special, which is where O'Boyle said he finds his passion and inspiration in locally sourcing products to mix with imported seafood. Flowers that occasionally appear on the patio or on tables in the restaurant are from a bartender's mother, who lives in Lawrence.
Madeira, and the rest of his staff, is in the community.
There's one more thing that has helped keep the Mass Street, Fish House relatively busy since it first opened in December: The restaurant is original, and it's continued to fill a niche, and do it well. Madeira is very aware of that, too.
"Downtown (Lawrence) has a lot of restaurants, so you want to try to do something that's not covered by somebody else," Madeira said. "A raw bar and a fish house, nobody's done this big like we have... We want to be considered one of the staples of the Lawrence community."
Christian S. Hardy/KANSAN The rotating menu posted beside the bar at Mass Street Fish House and Raw Bar, which was opened in December 2016 by Ayrick Madeira.
Christian S. Hardy/KANSAN
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