Stony Point getting seafood restaurant

By: Melissa Ruggieri | Times-Dispatch
Published: October 13, 2009

Out with the burritos, in with the fish.

In early December, the Outer Banks Seafood Co. is expected to open in Stony Point Fashion Park.

The restaurant, which opened its first location this spring in Corolla, N.C., is taking over the space vacated by Uncle Julio's Rio Grande Café, which abruptly closed in February 2007.

Mike Bishal, CEO of the restaurant that bills itself as a "traditional coastal eatery," said the concept for the Outer Banks location is to "help folks kick back and relax" with the soothing colors of its décor and provide "good, unpretentious food."

That same idea will be mimicked in Richmond.

"We don't want to be known as the expensive place or the inexpensive place," Bishal said. "We like to use the word value. We can't tell everyone what a value is -- we let them tell us."

The current menu for the Outer Banks Seafood Co. includes shrimp and grits with apple-smoked bacon; sliced bistro steak with a flat iron grilled lobster tail; crab-stuffed flounder and shrimp; and Crabmeat Remick with Swiss cheese au gratin.

Heading the culinary side of the restaurant is Chef Wes Stepp, who owns the Red Sky Café in Duck and worked as the executive chef at Kelly's Outer Banks Restaurant & Tavern in Nags Head.

The Stony Point location is the restaurant's first expansion from its North Carolina base, but Bishal expects to eventually move into Charlottesville, Northern Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Hiring for the Richmond location is expected to begin Monday at the restaurant.

"We have Richmond folks who call the Outer Banks 'Richmond East,'" he said. "We want to be where we know there is a fan base for the Outer Banks."