Fish and chips. Clam chowder and hush puppies. That’s what you’ll find at Shore Lunch, which opened quietly in August in Columbia Mall, right across from John Barleycorn restaurant. With fish as a specialty, Shore Lunch adds another dimension to food in the Mall and to eating out in Grand Forks.
Now that school is back in session and people are home from the lakes, they are beginning to discover Shore Lunch. You can order a Shore Dinner for $5.75 or a Shore Lunch for $3.75. With each plate, you get coleslaw, hush puppies and your choice of baked or French-fried potato wedges. The difference is in the amount of fish. With the dinner you get two fillets, cut into 10 pieces. With the lunch, you get one fillet, cut into five pieces. They are deep fried to order and have a crunchy brown crust.
Constant Companion ordered the Shore Lunch one night last week. He enjoyed the fish and the fries and the slaw. But he wasn’t as crazy about hush puppies as was a young man sitting at a nearby table, whistling them down.
Fried fish and fried potatoes seemed a little much to us. Another time, we decided, it would be wiser to order fish and have slaw and baked potato with it. My order that evening was a fish fillet sandwich for $2.25. You also can get it with fries for $2.75. Or you can get side orders of fish for $2.50, coleslaw for 90 cents, fries for 75 cents, hush puppies for 75 cents, baked potato for 75 cents or onion rings for $1.35.
Owner and manager Eunice Novick told me she is hoping to build up a carryout business. She said she will try to keep the menu simple. The fish, she said, are freshwater white fish from Mississippi. “They’re never more than a week away from the water.”
Shore Lunch no longer operates in Columbia Mall.