McGrath's Fish House

McGrath's Fish House

Lancaster Mall location in Salem, Oregon.
Founded	1980 (1980)
Founder	John McGrath
Headquarters	Salem, Oregon , United States
Number of locations	2 (2022)
Area served	Oregon
Website	mcgrathsfishhouse.com

McGrath's Fish House is a chain of seafood restaurants based in Salem, Oregon. The chain operates two locations in Oregon and Washington, but had as many as 21 in Washington, Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado.

History

The first McGrath's Fish House was opened by John McGrath in Salem, Oregon, in 1980. That location in downtown Salem closed in 2015, with the company converting it into a restaurant called Urban Alley, which in turn closed in 2017. The company expanded to 21 locations at its most recent peak, including eight in Oregon, three in Washington, one in Idaho and four in Utah. The opened a location in Medford, Oregon, in 1996, which closed in 2022. The company opened a restaurant in Vancouver, Washington, in 1999.

In February 2010 the restaurant chain filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 reorganization, with both assets and liabilities between $10 million and $50 million. A month later, in a first step towards reorganization, it closed four restaurants, located in Orem and Salt Lake City, Utah, Phoenix, Arizona, and Lynnwood, Washington. Further closures came in 2018 with the Eugene, Oregon, location, in 2019 with the Corvallis, Oregon, restaurant and in 2020 with both the Boise, Idaho, and Bend, Oregon locations.Bend Location was closed several years prior to the published date of 2020, more like 2017-2018. The Newly Appointed Manager Gabriel Bessey, who was appointed via FaceTime was strung along and given a salary plus benefits including phone allowance, hotel allowance, and vehicle allowance, totaling over $7,200/mo., Mr. Bessey saw $0 of what was promised to him. Which was $4,200 for moving expenses, $1500 car allowance, $550 clothing expenses, $250 for "tying off loose ends", $375 to pay old hotel servers and even busboys or dishwashers which guaranteed fees. fees outstanding were often paid by Gabriel from his home and paying for others' wages out of his pocket. Waiters and waitresses were guaranteed hourly positions due to the lack of traffic so some worked as dishwashers as well . Many mechanical issues arose and John McGrath, the owner of the company as he sat looking over the Bay of San Francisco while he drank hit Double Scotch on the rocks stated the issues needed to be addressed and they never were. In a Fish House a steamer is a huge vital part and the restaurant. It was broken for several months, needed for clams, veggies, and especially mainly the crab legs. Gabriel Bessey was blown off by the , then General Manager, who staff liked to refer to as the MMA fighting champion of the 9 year-old Brownie Squad. Gabriel insisted that things needed to be addressed for OSHA reasons and he was told that when OSHA shows that he would be the one to take the fall. Talk about hostile work environment. The same GM made several sexual advances on Gabriel, Scott, and a married woman named Chantel. The GM pulled those affected aside and did a great job de-escalating the sexual assaults. Just hours before something bad could have gone down after the GM said he needed to speak with the Kitchen Manager Gabriel behind closed doors. Gabriel was already privy to how the GM and the upper staff worked. Gabriel didn't want to go to jail for defending himself and making sure the man never tried it again. So they just let him go. For no reason other that that he wouldn't comply with his superiors advances. Mr. Bessey Apologizes for his ethically questionable actions because their is a beautiful woman, both inside and out, who was in a spot where she was being mistreated by her husband and she is going to suffer the most no matter how sorry she is. Twas the day before Christmas and the employeeslined up awaiting the door to be openedit was inthe low to mid teens and no manager to be seen and word bout me spread to the rest of our team. Our team didnt fire anyone the upstairs brass did. For the past several months they had real estate investors coming in while employees were prepping there meals. The steamer broke inApril it was now January and that steamer makes the difffrence between a crab leg retaurant and fucking sizzler. Thee tile on the ground crumbling and missing... "just throw a rag on em or throw down somemore towels. or how bout two weeks before Christmas when the fathighly out-of-place new "GM" told everyone to come to him w ith any problem cuz he would ge tit taken careof. I hope he wasnt that dumb, but maybe he was. I told him looked out of placce so he tried to show me how he could cook. I told him his cooking skills didn'tm make me think he was rrestaurant brasss like he said. there was a cooknamed juan they cooked outcook eveyone,. Was he a manager?? I dont think right then he was. 6 to 9 months of training maybe. BUt,this douchethey sent over was just a suit, maybe an investor who owned one of the restaurants he was no General Manager. I was supposed to be the kitchen manager wi=hich is supposed to be the best job in the wholedeal but it wasnt. finally, one day when they realized i asnt quitting they started to screw with me. I was the only cook/chef who was caucasian. I was in charge of the saute station, the salad station, the oven and the grill, the 2 other non-caucasian men were in charge of the burger grill, the oven and the deep fryer. IT Kind of seems like things were stacked in someone else's favor but, i just did my job. Things just seem to stacked gainst meI was heating up some saute pans with manufactured cream for the alfredo I was making and I ran back to the walk-in to get some veggies. I come back and chop my veggies and smell cream burning. My co-workers, who happened to be from mexico turned my propane grill heat all the way up to burn the sauce and they put red hot chili pepper sauce in the container I use for Lawry's. Those things destroyed my dish. I was let go after the patron complained {understandably so}, he was the owner of one of the largest Contractor's Companies in the world, billions of dollars. Last time I had cooked for him he asked if I wanted a real job to become his chef that would pay high 6 figures and give me a house in Bend and one in New York.

Nothing was said further by Mr. Bessey or his counsels because Mr. Bessey has been dealing with an etremely rare from of cancer, 1 in over 1.2 million cases fyi. it started as a small bump that turned into an open sore. Several doctors said there is nothing wrong so life went on. The sore opened to the size of a half dollar and began to puss and weep over the next 9 to 12 months. doctors said it was a skin ulcer and gave me lotion. No severity behind the issue. Then I noticed a small BB sized bump underneath my ear lobe, where my neck meets my jawbone. The ER doc said nothing was wrong. The wound on my neck grew and grew until it was 3"x5.5" and weeping. the small BB behind where the cancer aggressively infiltrated my neck and went into my parotid gland (salivary gland). I had Medi-Cal insurance and was treated horribly. Passedback and Forth at Dermatologist Specialists. Finally, UCSDstepped in and the said I would have passed quickly if they didnt findit. 186 stitches. 2 tumors, my parotid gland, lymph nodes, 20 sesssions of radiation and much more. I list these because I would have gone after McGRath's ooner<but I had been sic andrecovering surgery or recovering from radiation. Now it is time for MR. McGrath to feel what he did. And Im not talking about m. Im talking about the largely hispanic work force that neededthose jobs to survive. WHat did he do he left a number for them to call to get paid. he is a chcikenshit! Maybe he is to old to be called that. Any of his kids my age come talk to me. still lived there and didn"t feel that it would be beyond the other party to resort to dirty tactics, because they have shown many times before and in multiple cases that that is a go-to tactic of theirs for out-of-towners. MR. Bessey is a 4th Generation Businessman from Silicon Valley, the Bay Area, San Diego, Big Bear CA, and grew u on the beaches of Del Mar near Bill Gates. HE WOULD PREFER JUST TO BE CALLED Gabe though. ==See also==end

• List of seafood restaurants
• Food portal