Waking With the Fishes Frank Minio is the president of the Fulton Fish Market Story by Jordan Schwartz You smell the fish from the time you get into Frank Minio’s red Chevy Avalanche. “It’s gonna get much worse,” he warned. He was right. The Rosemawr resident knows all about seafood: the odor, the taste and the cost. That’s because for the past seven years, he’s been the president of the second largest fish market in the world. Only Tokyo has a bigger facility than the Fulton Fish Market in the South Bronx, where 39 businesses sell similar products, each one trying to undercut the other. Minio owns Smitty’s Fillet House, a second generation company started by his father, Joseph, in 1942. He and his wife, Anna, lived on Cherry St. in Little Italy and when they both came down with measles at the same time, they got the nicknames Smitty and Ginny after comic strip characters who also suffered from the same sickness. “Smitty” died suddenly in 1978 and his two sons, Frank and Joseph, were forced to make a decision: either take over the business or sell it. They opted to keep the firm going. “It was nice to be relied on,” said Frank, who may have regretted that decision after a few months. During his first year at Smitty’s, Minio and his secretary were victims of an armed robbery. “You feel so violated,” he said about the incident during which he had a gun pointed at his head. “I said, ‘You can do whatever you
Smitty’s Fillet House owner Frank Minio holds a sample of what he sells.
want to me, just don’t hurt the girl.’ I couldn’t believe I said that.” Minio never had any intention of selling fish in the first place. The 59-year-old went to Savarian High School in Brooklyn before getting his undergraduate degree from Fairfield University and a master’s in both English and theater at Villanova. He taught literature and acting in Philadelphia while doing theater of his own on the side. “I always liked to teach and then I went to a play in grad school and I thought I could do that,” Minio explained. “Like Dustin Hoffman
once said, acting is a great way to meet women.’” Once his father passed away, the aspiring thespian thought he could sell fish at night and then audition during the day, but the two worlds became impossible to blend. Back in the early years, the Market used to open at 4 am, but with customers needing to get out before the start of rush hour traffic, Minio’s work day now begins around 1. The married father of one wakes up at midnight and makes the more than half-hour trip from his Heights Rd. home, across the George April 2009 • Clifton Merchant
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