Michelle Mongelli didn’t believe her husband 20 years ago, when he showed her the place he wanted to buy on Stock Island.
“I thought he was kidding. This place was rough. I mean rough,” she said. “When we took over, we didn’t tell anyone, and we never closed the place. But we did raise the price of beer by 50 cents — to clear out the crackheads.”
Bobby Mongelli nodded in agreement, recalling the rundown shrimper bar known as the Nobody Knows. The ramshackle building at Safe Harbor Marina on Stock Island’s Front Street was tucked in among the hard-working and world-weary shrimp boats. The dress code seemed only to require white, rubber shrimper boots and the menu was, shall we say, limited?
“The ‘kitchen’ consisted of a hot dog warmer, a George Foreman Grill and a microwave,” Bobby Mongelli said, laughing, on a recent Monday afternoon, 20 years later, as a waitress delivered hogfish tacos, hogfish bites, fish dip, shrimp and grits, a giant summer salad and an assortment of fresh seafood entrees to the dockside table.
The Mongellis turned the Nobody Knows Bar into a place nearly everyone knows — Hogfish Bar & Grill — and they’re inviting them all to celebrate its 20th anniversary on Saturday, Nov. 19, with a party starting around 4 p.m. In addition to food and drink specials, there will be live music by Mac McAnally, Scotty Emerick and Andy Westcott. Other famous musicians have found their way to the Hogfish over the past two decades. Photos in the bar show Mongelli with country stars Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney and George Strait. And of course, Jimmy Buffett has been there.
“But this place got off to a really slow start,” Michelle Mongelli said. “We never in a million years imagined how busy it would become, and we’re incredibly grateful to our locals and to the tourists who find us once, and then keep coming back. But it was a long time before there were any tourists in here.”
Even some longtime locals still depend on the small yellow signs that have always pointed the way to the Hogfish. One is located on Maloney Avenue near the West Marine sign, where you turn. The other sends drivers down Stock Island’s Front Street, past a collection of not-yet-gentrified trailer parks, industrial lots and a gun shop.
But Bobby had a vision for the future — and an appreciation for Stock Island’s past.
“There’s a lot of history out here,” he said, gesturing to the docks that surround the restaurant. “The ferry from Key West to Cuba used to leave from these docks every day until Castro and the embargo changed everything in the late ’50s.”
There’s also plenty of flaky and delicious hogfish on the menu here.
“We started spearing hogfish and built this whole place around our hogfish sandwich,” he said. “Since then, we’ve obviously redone the kitchen, cleaned it up, expanded the menu and offered daily specials, including the always-affordable working man’s lunch.”
When the Hogfish opened in 2002, Mongelli, who came to Key West in the ’80s and has the scars and stories to prove it, still owned PT’s Late Night, another legendary locals’ favorite on Caroline Street in Old Town, Key West.
“We closed PT’s in 2007,” Bobby said, acknowledging that the Hogfish benefitted hugely from “some lucky breaks.”
Esteemed chef Norman van Aken, whose Key West ties stretch back to the ’70s, convinced chef Emeril Lagasse to do a spot about the Hogfish Bar & Grill, Mongelli said.
“Then the New York Times included us in a ‘24 Hours in Key West’ travel piece. Chef Andrew Zimmern came here twice. But the biggest thing was the ‘Today Show’ episode from Key West that featured me cooking a hogfish filet at Mallory Square. All that exposure is really what allowed this to happen.”
Exposure and confidence.
“We were among the first to come out here and take a chance on Stock Island,” said Mongelli, who has found equal success with Roostica, the family’s Italian restaurant and wood-fired pizzeria, also on Stock Island.
“We still hear people say, ‘I thought I was getting set up while driving here through the neighborhoods,’” Michelle said with both laughter and pride.
And the fact that the restaurant and bar are still frequented by local fishermen is a testament to the fresh seafood and authentic familiarity of a bygone era that’s not entirely gone from Stock Island and is still firmly in place at the Hogfish Bar & Grill.
What: Hogfish Bar & Grill 20th anniversary party
When: Saturday Nov. 19, starts “around 4 p.m.”
Where: Duh. Hogfish Bar & Grill, 6810 Front St., Stock Island
Featuring live music by Andy Westcott, Mac McAnally and Scotty Emerick plus food and drink specials.
