The fabled roadway - long thought dead after being defunded by the City Council, only to be resurrected at the last minute by the barest majority of forward-thinking citizens - may not win any prizes for aesthetic beauty. In just 3 weeks Seattleites will vote on whether to dismantle the RH Thomson Expressway. After 4 decades of protest following their narrow defeat in 1972, anti-freeway activists are poised to prevail at last. “The government,” says Rowley, “says they are the only store in the country who do.” If Jon Rowley has his way, that statistic will be changing soon.We’re on the eve of the biggest civic mistake in the history of our fair city. He is very strict with them, but the stores have found that it pays off: One of Rowley’s supermarkets now sells more fish than beef. The demand for the sort of fish now served in Seattle restaurants is so strong that Rowley’s most recent customers have all been supermarkets. If what’s happened in Seattle is any indication, the public very likely will. It’s a good fish, but the wholesalers won’t carry it because there isn’t a market for it.” Rowley intends to get restaurants interested in albacore, in hopes that the public will follow along. Only recently has a little dribble of it gone into the market in its natural form. “The tuna canners on the West Coast have closed down,” says Rowley, “and the production of that entire fishery went into cans. And so when the government gave him a grant to help the ailing albacore industry, Rowley decided to go to restaurants again. “High-profile restaurants are a good place to get products off the ground,” says Rowley. There’s another part to this equation: Once customers have tasted this fish, they begin to want it at home. Once they’ve learned quality standards, restaurants know how to buy really high-grade fish.” “Well,” says Rowley, “people that I’ve worked with for a while can look at a fish and tell you its entire history: How it was caught, what happened to it on the deck of the boat, how it was transported, what the colors mean, what the different bruises mean-they all tell a story. In a week of eating in Seattle, I never had less than wonderful fish. A local fish like black cod (often sold in the supermarket as the despised “butterfish”), is an extraordinary treat when it is really fresh. And it is impressive go into any of a couple of dozen restaurants, places that look like ordinary tourist joints, and you find superlative seafood. “I have never tried to convince anyone to use my services,” says Rowley, but he has almost single-handedly improved the quality of fish that Seattle eats. Two years ago Rowley and his wife, Anne, started Fish Works. I really didn’t want to be in the wholesale business, so I decided to sell what I know instead.” “Restaurants found that when they started paying attention to the quality of fish they were serving, their business went up and they made more money. Rowley was practically smuggling fish in the back door of restaurants, but more and more of them wanted his wares. (The director admitted that Rowley’s fish was remarkably fresh, but said, “ You can’t just let anybody run around town selling fish off the tailgate of a truck.”) The Health Department refused to license the operation. Then other restaurants began to clamor for good fish, and the little business grew too fast.
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