A New American Town - Bentonville, Arkansas

Arkansas's Best Seafood: How Blu Fresh Fish Marketplace Earned National Recognition

• Visit Bentonville • Season 9 • Episode 14

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Northwest Arkansas is one of the fastest-growing regions in the country, with three Fortune 500 companies, plus numerous businesses and startups eager to contribute to the local innovation scene.

Join us as we talk to Nelson Peacock, President/CEO of the NWA Council—a private, nonprofit organization working to advance job opportunities, talent recruitment, physical infrastructure, health care, and quality of life.

We'll talk about all the Council has accomplished in the last 30 years and the economic opportunity and quality of life in NWA that's unmatched. With 500-plus miles of mountain biking trails and paved paths, a thriving arts community complete with world-class museums, an eclectic culinary scene, live music, and miles of lush Ozark beauty. Best of all it's a place where everyone is welcome.

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Natalie Stika:

When you think of fresh seafood, your mind probably doesn't go straight to Northwest Arkansas, but this Bentonville restaurant is a major player in changing that. In this episode, we're sitting down with the owner of Blue Fresh Fish Marketplace, a local favorite that has earned statewide and national praise, being recognized as best seafood in Arkansas and even the best lobster roll in the state. We'll talk about how Blue brings coastal quality to a landlocked town and what goes into sourcing their incredible menu, and why people across the region and beyond keep coming back. Whether you're a seafood lover, a sushi snob or just planning your next meal in Bentonville, this one's for you. Folks, we had some technical difficulties while we were recording this conversation today, so please enjoy it. In a remote location, Audio might sound different, but we're so excited to welcome Barry Furseth from Blue Fish House. He's a major fishmonger in our city and I'm Natalie with Visit Bentonville. Today, I'm joined with fishmonger Barry Furseth with Blue Fresh Fish Marketplace. Thank you so much for joining us.

Barry Furuseth:

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Natalie Stika:

So, first off, I wanted to just start by asking you where are you from and how did you get into fish?

Barry Furuseth:

Well, I'm originally from northern Minnesota we come from. I was born and raised on a small Indian reservation, chippewa, from the Ojibwe Nation. So my mom and dad moved us there. My dad was superintendent of the five schools. My mom's a first grade teacher, but originally my dad's family, both of them came from northern Scandinavia, my dad's full-blooded Norwegian, so we come from a long history of people of the sea fishermen. So I think maybe my DNA it's how it's been there. That's awesome.

Natalie Stika:

A lot of restaurants like to claim that they're the best at what they do. You probably know that, but you actually are able to claim that you're the best. You've had so many recognitions and awards. Could you name all of them?

Barry Furuseth:

for us lot I think. But the recognition I think comes from the American boaters. You know we've had, I've had a long relationship with a lot of boaters from both coasts the Gulf, maine, boston and also Canada up into the Nova Scotia areas. That's sort of what we built our business on and that is strong relationships with the boaters.

Natalie Stika:

Wow, yeah, that was going to be my next question, Like how do you have such renowned seafood in Fentonville?

Barry Furuseth:

I guess it kind of came easy for me because when I first moved from Minnesota to San Francisco, where I started selling fish from the boats a long time ago, both coasts Seattle and Boston but logistically when we were buying from the boats I was shipping throughout the United States, whether it be Ohio, kansas, kentucky. So logistic-wise we were able to take it out of the water and get it to these remote areas. And when we moved to to bentonville area, as long as I had an airport, uh, we were able to bring fish in. And that was that was over 15 years ago. Blue opened its doors 11 years ago and some of the same suppliers, most of the same suppliers I had on the coast, started shipping fish to Exaday. Wow.

Natalie Stika:

Wow, what inspired you to open one here in town.

Barry Furuseth:

After living, you know, growing up in a very small town in northern Minnesota and my wife from South America, we probably you know the big city kind of as far as when we started having kids education I think was a big thing. We didn't want to bring them up in such, you know, big towns. The school systems out here at the time we moved out here were some of the best in nations, so we just wanted to move to a smaller area.

Natalie Stika:

Yeah, yeah, Bentonville is so fond of blue. Not only Bentonville, but every neighboring town, obviously nationwide and statewide as well. How would you describe it to someone who's never been?

Barry Furuseth:

I think you know when you walk into the, we're not fancy. Obviously, when you go into blue you'll see that it used to be an old garage. I think the most important thing is we've grown slowly over the last years on people who really enjoy great seafood. But you know, on a daily basis Tuesdays, thursdays, fridays we bring in shipments from both coasts. So you're getting bluefin tuna from Boston, you're getting salmon from the West Coast. East Coast we bring in salmon out of Iceland. So when you walk through the doors, whether you're in New York, miami, seattle or wherever you want to pick, you're getting incredible seafood, just like you were on the coast, most of it like. Just take, for instance, our scallops I bring out of Portland, maine. These are dayboat scallops that go out. The dayboat means these are small boats that go out. They get the scallop, they shuck them and then they ship them to northwest Arkansas. So you're actually getting a scallop that was brought out of the water, shucked the day before.

Natalie Stika:

It doesn't get better than that. It doesn't. I love that. So the amazing part about Blue here is that you serve food. You make amazing seafood, you make amazing everything, but you also have the whole half. That is the fresh fish marketplace. Tell me more about that. Was that originally the concept or was the restaurant in first?

Barry Furuseth:

Nope, that was the original concept Coming from the world of wholesaling fresh fish. The original concept was to come out here and for me to just starting, you know, bringing fish from the boats to sell wholesale. At the time, though, when we moved out here 14 years ago, there really wasn't a big enough market for that, and so, when we opened up the market first, that's what we were going to do, and, seeing that the business at that time there just wasn't enough, then we opened up the restaurant, and that was a big changer. So we're able to bring in fresh fish, move it in the restaurant. What you see in our retail counters is always moving. That's one of the things that makes Blue so successful is we'll bring in fish, we'll stick it in the retail market, and because, as the restaurant has become more successful over the years, we're moving thousands of pounds of fish each and every other day, that fish is always fresh yeah, yeah, you can.

Natalie Stika:

You can tell, whenever you eat it and whenever you buy fish, what's your favorite one that you guys sell I've got a lot of different fish that that I like personally.

Barry Furuseth:

Um, you know well, I like more of a fatty fish. So we've got Florida grouper. One of my favorite fish is amberjack, which is yellowtail. We get that out of the coast of Florida and the Carolinas, but we also bring in from Iceland. I bring in some of the best salmon in the world.

Natalie Stika:

If we have visitors coming that can't take fish back home, what would be your can't-miss dish?

Barry Furuseth:

I mean we bring in also. A lot of our sales are from the Gulf shrimp. So we're bringing in and this is a stat 92% of all shrimp that's coming into the United States was farm-raised from China, thailand, india, all these different places. Since we've opened up, we've had a relationship with boaters on the Gulf. We recently have a relationship, a partnership, with Dominic's in the Gulf. He's got eight boats. He's one of the only boats down there that has a complete chem-free product. So we're bringing this incredible Gulf shrimp some of the best shrimp in the world, all chem-free to northwest Arkansas. When you eat this shrimp, you will know, you will see the big difference right away.

Natalie Stika:

Wow, yeah, I've had friends that have raved about this shrimp, so that makes so much sense. My first shrimp was from the Gulf of Mexico, and every shrimp I've had after that is not the same.

Barry Furuseth:

But we have shrimp all over the menu. We have shrimp and grist shrimp, shrimp bowls, cocktail shrimp, spicy shrimp.

Natalie Stika:

You sound like Forrest Gump now.

Barry Furuseth:

Yeah, well, here you go. But just when you bite into our shrimp, it'll have this crunch to it and you'll see the difference immediately. This is some of the best shrimp in the world.

Natalie Stika:

Are there any other hidden gems on the menu that our visitors should know about?

Barry Furuseth:

One of the hidden gems is when you come into Blue and you see in this other half of the garage, other half of the garage you're going to go in and our sushi chefs our main one executive sushi chef Abraham has been doing this for over 20 years. He is one of the best sushi chefs in the nation.

Barry Furuseth:

Mandy is our other sushi chef over at DTR. I've got to talk a little bit about DTR. It's in downtown Rogers, but Mandy is incredible, and so one of the things is, you wouldn't expect it, but when you come in to Blue and you go to the left and you get the sushi, we've got bluefin tuna coming in from Boston, we've got toro, we've got dayboat scallops, I've got hamachi in from Japan, we've got caviar.

Natalie Stika:

So it's pretty incredible. Really extensive Backtracking you were talking about when you first walk in. The vibe is just my favorite. I mean, the food is obviously incredible, but I love that when you walk in, you walk into this greenhouse of sorts outside and you feel like you're in a tropical oasis. And then you walk in and to the right you see the whole fresh fish marketplace and to the left you see a sushi counter and all these bustling tables and it really is such an experience. It transports you out of downtown Bentonville. It's so special.

Barry Furuseth:

One of the things that I wanted to create. The other thing is this I'm a big gardener, so that's one of my passions is flowers and trees, but we've created a whole marina. When you come down that block, you're driving, you're going to see palm trees, you're going to see rope from the big boats that are coming in. We've created this whole marina atmosphere From the minute you come into the parking lot. When you walk in, you'll see the fish on the walls, You'll smell that fresh marina, smell the lobster tanks.

Barry Furuseth:

I'm probably one of the only crazy people that has lobster tanks in the middle of their dining room to the right.

Barry Furuseth:

We go through about 300 to 400 live lobsters a week and one of the things that you're going to probably ask me is about we were just rated in Yelp the number one the seafood restaurant in Arkansas, but they also rated us the number one lobster rule in the state of Arkansas.

Barry Furuseth:

I would probably say we have one of the best lobster rolls in the nation and I tell you what makes a great lobster roll. In the state of Arkansas, I would probably say we have one of the best lobster rolls in the nation and I tell you what makes a great lobster roll is we have live lobsters, we have steamers that we bring in that live lobster, we stick it in the steamer, take it out, chop up that lobster right there, and then we also have fresh bread that we make every single day. So when you take that fresh bread, open it up, you put that fresh steamed lobster that minutes ago was live, you put that in that bun. We toast both sides so you get a crunch when you, when you bite into it and it is, like I said, one of the best lobster rolls you'll ever eat I'm so hungry.

Natalie Stika:

How did you guys go about getting those recognitions?

Barry Furuseth:

I mean, tell me more well, I just, you know, I think, I think it's, it's, it's all about delivery. Um, your seafood lovers, your people who are really passionate about seafood, um, they, they, they know, they know great seafood. You can't fool them, and so when you're bringing this stuff out of the water, you're cooking it right there. Um, it's, it's, it's the is the reason why we would get that praise. So it's not because we have a brand new building or everything is perfect. It's not You're walking into a garage, but one thing that you're going to get when you come into Blue Fresh Fish Marketplace you're going to get the best, freshest seafood in the nation.

Natalie Stika:

Yeah, what was it like when you saw that article for the first time? The best seafood in Arkansas.

Barry Furuseth:

You know what I thought it was great. You know, I've had 15 of our employees for the last eight years. I think that the recognition that we get a lot of it is from a team of people that have been cooking great seafood for a long time great seafood for a long time. And the other thing, the boaters. Believe it or not. Dave Hopkins and these people Mark Ring from Gloucester Massachusetts, gloucester Boston.

Natalie Stika:

I send them these articles and the boaters are extremely excited when they see this stuff because they work their butt off. Yeah, that's so good. Are there any new dishes or seasonal specials that we should know about?

Barry Furuseth:

We try to seasonally. Especially when you're in the seafood business, there's a lot of seasonal things that come in. Some of the areas that we bring in product from are not always the fishermen can't go out. I bring a lot of stuff out of Northern Nova Scotia, the Arctic. When you think of, well, there's an area that I love bringing seafood, the fishermen can't go out, I bring a lot of stuff out of northern Nova Scotia, the Arctic. When you think of, well, there's an area that I love bringing seafood, it's called the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tide changes in the world. If you've ever been there, it's 25 feet a day. It's incredible. But what comes from these waters, these rich Arctic waters that come down south into Nova Scotia, into Maine, the Gulf of Maine is extremely rich waters full of plankton, zoo, plankton, live water that's crystal clear, and what your mussels, your clams, your oysters, your bivalves, your scallops that come from these regions are absolutely incredible. You will taste the difference the difference.

Natalie Stika:

Yeah, that's so cool. You really bring seafood from the world right here to bentonville. Wow, that's so special.

Barry Furuseth:

I think there's another, you know, like with with squid. Where does some of the best squid comes from? You know we bring squid again out of the southern region of the antarctic. Uh, there's the falkland islands that produce some of that. They get those northern antarctic uh waters, but our squid is just. You'll taste the difference when you have our calamari, our stuffed squid. You'll taste the difference yeah, uh.

Natalie Stika:

well, if our listeners don't know yet, you have have another restaurant you're opening in downtown Bentonville called Wu Zhao. That's right, and we can expect some really good seafood there as well.

Barry Furuseth:

Yeah, some of our dishes are seafood influenced, so you're going to get. You know, wu Zhao obviously the name is Chinese. When I moved to San Francisco and started selling fish in my early days, I fell in love with incredible Chinese food. It was always a you know, that's my favorite.

Barry Furuseth:

But when the opportunity came up as a lot of your listeners will know, as Bentonville explodes, there's certain things that we kind of can fill that those doors. One of them is the Chinese food. We also have dim sum. So along with this great you know when you look at place and time the Chinese, the dim sum I also brought in one of the top chefs in the world.

Barry Furuseth:

He'll be one of the first celebrity chefs to come to town. He's the wolf of Walk Street. What he does on the walks is just mind-blowing. So he's going to be behind the culinary and we actually got a two-for-one. So his partner is Catherine Zhang, who won Netflix Desserts. She was the youngest person to win Netflix desserts, at 19 years old. The desserts that she creates in her brain are mind-boggling. So we're going to have incredible Chinese food. Our dessert menu will be off the charts, but we're also doing handmade dimsums, which you don't see a lot in mid-America If you go to the coast. It's really really popular right now and will continue to be, but we have, along with our two sushi stations up there, we'll also be doing handmade dimsums daily, putting into these steamers. It's going to be really special. So when you walk through these doors, we're at Northwest A Street, just off the Bentonville Square. We have a ton of parking over there, but it's going to be your Asian experience.

Natalie Stika:

Yeah, I'm so excited.

Barry Furuseth:

Probably mid-May we'll be opening that up. I'm excited.

Natalie Stika:

Yeah, it's going to be epic.

Barry Furuseth:

A lot of our dishes that will be inspired by the chef do have seafood in them or seafood. There'll be quite a bit.

Natalie Stika:

That's great. That's awesome, like our dumplings.

Barry Furuseth:

We have shrimp dumplings, wild shrimp dumplings, wow, things like that Wow.

Natalie Stika:

Well, one thing I always like to ask our guests what's on your Bentonville bucket list and I assume you've already done a lot of things, but if you had friends or family in town, what should be on their bucket list?

Barry Furuseth:

Well, I think the number one thing when you come to Bentonville you know, along with some great restaurants, our restaurant scene right now going in northwest Arkansas not just Blue Fresh Fish Marketplace, not just Wu Zhao, but we've got some extraordinary restaurants coming in. You know the restaurant scene is pretty great. But obviously you know when you look at what we have to do with our biking community. It's some of the best in the nation. You go out to the Ozarks, you go to these bike trails if you get a chance to, there's hundreds and hundreds of miles of bike trails if you don't want to be that adventurous. We've got amazing. You've got Crystal Bridges. Of course, that's the big one that everybody usually comes here for. We've got the Momentary. The Momentary what's the headband over? We're across the street from the Momentary so we get most of their staff over at Blue.

Barry Furuseth:

But the lineup of what momentary has for this summer is crazy. The groups that they have coming in. A lot of this stuff is free, but if not, I know that it's a very minimal charge to become a member of the momentary and you get to experience all of these festivals, all of these groups that are coming in, but there's just so much that northwest arkansas has to offer right now. A lot of people don't even think if you, if you're, if you love the lake, we've got beaver lake. Beaver lake is one of the cleanest lakes in the nation. It's huge, it's monstrous, but it's our drinking water, and what they've done to keep that water clean is it's just. This is you can almost drink this water. In fact we do. It's our drinking water, but it is.

Natalie Stika:

It is an amazing lake as far as recreation goes yeah, uh, if you're ever over at the momentary, don't get to stop at blue in between. Well, we get most of them oh good well, thank you so much for joining us.

Barry Furuseth:

It was good um exciting time to be in Bentonville yeah, it is.

Natalie Stika:

Uh, don't forget. Visit Bentonville is here to help you navigate things to do, where to eat and stay and what's going on in our new American town. Check out the show notes. To follow us on social, sign up for our newsletter and check out our website at visitbentonvillecom. Thanks for listening.