Want To Eat Buffalo Bayou Catfish? Dallas Restaurateur Seeks To Serve It In The Heights

Eat local, sure, but fish from the Buffalo Bayou? If one restaurateur gets his way, that's exactly what you could dine on when he sets up shop in the Heights.

Shannon Wynne is bringing his popular Flying Fish restaurant to Houston this fall, and he's bullish on Buffalo Bayou catfish. So much so that he's attempting to secure a permit from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to fish the Houston waterway.

"They say 'local grown' is better for the environment, so those bureaucrats in Washington ought to let us sell mud-cat right out of the bayou. Quit blocking free enterprise," Wynne said in a statement. "We have no doubt that Houston fishermen can catch fish bigger than other towns in the Lone Star State."

Wynne operates nine Flying Fish restaurants in Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee, as well as 16 Flying Saucer taprooms and Rodeo Goat ice houses in Ft. Worth and Dallas.

The Heights Flying Fish will be located at North Durham and West 19th Street, and Wynne said the building in which his restaurant will do business is a unique one.

"Everyone wants to know why we decided to come to Houston," he said. "The building spoke to me." According to the Houston Chronicle, the building previously was occupied by the Houston Tire Shop.

Flying Fish is a fast-casual eatery, and makes a point of letting its customers know that tipping is not expected. The restaurants, in addition to catfish, serve crawfish, shrimp, oysters, gumbo, and crab.

— Image courtesy livintejas.blogpsot.com