Net Results Successful Fish Vendor Sells Fresh Food From Parking Lots

On Wednesday nights in Cheney, people swarm around a Coleman lantern in a parking lot to buy some of the freshest seafood in the Inland Northwest.

The man selling the salmon fillets, oysters, crab, lobster, smoked mussels and blue-nose bass has got such a smooth business going he refuses to say who sends him his goods.

Gary Mitchell doesn’t want any new competition beyond the grocers. He’s found his niche. He now can get some yellowfin tuna so fresh he can peddle it to sushi fans.

Mitchell, a former Idaho logger, fled the dangerous life in the woods five years ago to feed a consumer demand in a land-locked region loaded with seafood-starved transplants from the coasts.

Now he drives a 1982 Mazda truck 700 miles a week, setting up his portable fish market in St. Maries, Silver Valley and Moscow in Idaho; Ritzville and Cheney in Washington.

Most every weekday morning, the North Idaho resident is at Spokane International Airport stuffing about nine coolers full of seafood. He then heads to his roadside market spots where he greets customers by name.

“He’s a wandering troubadour and minstrel,” said Felix Mutschler, a Cheney customer. “I like the fish. I like Gary. … It’s convenient, a little old-fashioned.”

Mitchell smiles when people gripe they often can’t get fish as fresh from the grocery stores.

He said grocers may have a different definition of fresh. “I guess they figure it’s not fresh anymore when it’s time to throw it away.”

Mitchell’s back-of-the-truck business is bolstered by a national and local seafood rage.

Seafood demand has increased by almost 20 percent in the past two years in Spokane, said Kevin Gramson, general manager of Ocean Beauty Seafoods of Spokane.

Gramson said some of the 20,000 to 40,000 pounds of fresh and frozen seafood his company distributes weekly to restaurants and grocers is caught only hours before it’s flown to Spokane.

He said some Spokane restaurants, such as Milford’s Fish House and Salty’s, now offer daily fresh sheets to market the freshest seafood available.

Gramson also claimed shoppers sometimes get fresher seafood in Spokane than in Seattle. “A lot of times you pay more on the coast because of the illusion that it’s gotta be fresher.”

Mitchell, however, maintains that the prevailing notion that it’s hard to get real fresh seafood 250 miles from saltwater is the main reason he’s in business.

Standing in front of his truck in a bulky parka and fingerless gloves, Mitchell offers these seafood insights:

Sole, snapper, cods and all soft-flesh fish go bad the fastest.

Yellowfin tuna, salmon, halibut and most fast-swimming, muscular fish last the longest.

Clams and oysters will hold for a couple of days, but watch them closely.

Smoked mussels and blue nose bass (from New Zealand) are delicious.

Dozens of Mitchell’s Cheney customers arrived between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. to grab their main course at the corner of Spokane-Cheney Road and Main Street.

“Hola,” Mitchell said to a Hispanic regular. He asked another customer where she’d been for the past few months. The pregnant woman explained she couldn’t eat seafood during her first trimester.

Mitchell said he doesn’t make as much money as he made in the woods, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to worry about gashing himself with a chain saw. He also enjoys meeting the different people, getting to know his customers.

One regular ordered some orange roughy then realized his wallet was empty.

“You want to pay me next week?” Mitchell asked.

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Jim Lynch Staff writer Staff photographer Sandra Bancroft-Billings contributed to this report.