New fish house coming to Willoughby Spit, with dockside seats to watch the boat races

Amy Higgins wasn’t at Norfolk’s Willoughby Harbor Marina to look for a restaurant. She was looking for a parking spot.

“I grew up in this area and I happened to be with my dad trying to find a spot for his trailer,” she said. “And the dock master was like, ‘Hey, I have a restaurant space available. Do you know anyone interested?’”

Turns out, upon further reflection, she did.

The marina building overlooking the water had been home to seafood spot the Sunset Grill, which moved two years ago to the Lambert’s Point neighborhood just south of Old Dominion University.

The forthcoming Willoughby Fish House is located at the end of the dock at the Willoughby Harbor Marina, in the space that used to be home to the Sunset Grill. (Courtesy Sean Kraft )

Higgins and chef Sean Kraft already had a cooking business. After retiring from the Navy, Kraft had parlayed his pension into a new berth at culinary school, a job cooking food for visiting baseball teams at Harbor Park, and a catering business with Higgins called Krafty in the Kitchen.

“People liked our food so much, they kept asking where the restaurant was,” she said. “Especially after the stay-at-home order was lifted, they kept asking where the restaurant was so they could come out and eat. They wanted out.”

So they took a tour and started imagining how they could establish a fish house of their own on that marina dock.

“I came in and I loved the space,” Higgins said. “Like I said, I grew up here. I grew up eating at all the old restaurants: Fisherman’s Wharf, Lynnhaven Fish House, the Duck-In. ... When you’re growing up in ’70s and ’80s here, you go out and you catch your fish, you cook it, you go out crabbing, things like that. And that’s how you eat. My dad has owned several restaurants and bars and I have worked there, and so it was just kind of natural that this all just fell into place.”

And so they got to work. Since July, they’ve been remaking the bones of the marina restaurant, pouring epoxy for tables and brightening the corners, doing most of the construction themselves while they get funds to continue work.

They hope to open Willoughby Fish House as soon as Memorial Day weekend, with an array of seafood and comfort food long familiar to locals.

“We are bringing in a true raw bar: We’re going to have oysters and clams and mussels and steamed shrimp, steamed crab legs, all that fun stuff,” Higgins said. “We’re going to have some typical bar food — burgers and some chicken wings — down to, you know, crab cake sandwiches and, of course, fish tacos.”

Kraft will be using local seafood wherever possible, in addition to specialties like Alaskan king crab, and local produce — building on a familiarity he honed over years of catering and farm markets.

“We did a 17-dish ordering table event for Madison County farmers market in 2017, I believe, and each dish was provided by a local vendor to the farmers market,” he said. “So I took what they gave me and created a menu. And then the day of the event, each of the farmer stood behind our desk so they could explain what their farm contributed.”

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Higgins’ two oldest children had been cooking at Snowshoe Mountain Resort and are joining them in the kitchen, making the restaurant a true family affair.

The décor will be seafoam green and corrugated metal, with vintage pictures of the area adorning the walls. They’ve enlisted a metal marine artist to create metal fish and marine décor. And they are planning an inside-outside bar for their menu of orange crushes, mojitos and margaritas, with about 20 seats inside and 28 on the patio looking out on the boats going by.

“We pretty much just gave it a facelift,” Kraft said. “There was nothing really structural that was changed. We revitalized the deck on the dock side of the building. We replaced a railing that was kind of dilapidated. We spruced up the bar area.”

The indoor-outdoor bar at the Willoughby Fish House, which hopes to open by summer 2021 serving local seafood and comfort classics. (Courtesy Sean Kraft)

But even before the fish house opens, they’re already outside on Thursdays serving their food to people who’d like to come down and watch the sailboat races that’ll continue through the summer.

“We set up a food sales tent out here in the parking lot of the marina, usually starting somewhere around 6 o’clock,” Kraft said. “We stay until all the races are done and everyone has been fed.”

The Willoughby Fish House plans to open by summer at 1525 Bayville St., Norfolk. Follow their progress and pre-opening pop-ups on their Facebook page at bit.ly/WilloughbyFishHouse.

Matthew Korfhage, 757-446-2318, matthew.korfhage@pilotonline.com