Carlos Rosas was the friendly manager of Calumet Fisheries, offering samples, inviting people in to check out the smoker, remembering the orders of regulars at the Chicago fish shack that has hooked critical acclaim.
Mr. Rosas, 41, died Monday after contracting the coronavirus, Calumet Fisheries posted on Facebook.
“Carlos was our ambassador. He always had a smile on his face and would greet you with a warm hello,” the posting said. “A big part of the spirit of Calumet Fisheries went to heaven yesterday.”
Mr. Rosas “loved telling people about the history of the store, showing them the smoker,” restaurant co-owner and president Mark Kotlick told the Sun-Times. “They’d always ask me, ‘Is Carlos in the back?’ ”
After the 2018 death of Anthony Bourdain, the famed chef-writer-TV food chronicler, Mr. Rosas shared his recollections of Bourdain’s 2008 visit to the Southeast Side joint for his show “No Reservations.”
Bourdain “actually got to know the people behind the counter,” he said. “It wasn’t like, ‘This is my job, I’m here to do it and by.’ He actually wanted to know the people.”
Kotlick said Mr. Rosas was just “a kid out of high school” when he started working at the 92-year-old Rust Belt institution at 3259 E. 95th St. He took on increasing responsibility until “It was basically me and him running the show,” Kotlick said.
The takeout restaurant might look like a bait shop, but it was named a winner in 2010 in the prestigious James Beard Awards nationwide competition in 2010, the Oscars of the food world.
Calumet Fisheries has won the devotion of hungry diners who make pilgrimages there to get the dozen or so kinds of smoked fish from the natural wood smokehouse behind the shack. Also on the menu: fried and stuffed shrimp, scallops, smelt, catfish, frog legs and more.
Usually, the smell is too good to wait until they arrive home. Customers dig into the fragrant bags of fishy goodness as soon as they get outside.
It sits at the base of the 95th Street bridge over the Calumet River. When the “Blues Brothers” was being filmed there in 1979, “Calumet Fisheries hosted the movie crew,” according to its website. “Remember Jake and Elwood jumping a bridge in the Bluesmobile? That was the 95th Street bridge, where Calumet Fisheries is located.”
A wake is planned from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at 13300 S Houston Ave. A funeral Mass is planned for 10 a.m. Friday at St. Kevin’s Catholic Church, 10509 S Torrence Ave. Burial will be at St John/St Joseph Cemetery in Hammond, Indiana.
