Back on top: Readers say The Beach House has 'WNY's Best Fish Fry'

by jmaloni

Fri, Apr 3rd 2026 07:10 am

Grand Island restaurant takes back title first won more than a decade ago

By Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

When it comes to fish frys, The Beach House has history on its side.

The Grand Island restaurant, at 5584 East River Road, was the second eatery to win “WNY’s Best Fish Fry” – Niagara Frontier Publications’ annual Easter contest – and the first to repeat – actually taking three-straight titles from 2013-15.

More importantly, “We have a lot of experience here. I don't want to brag in any way, but I probably have cooked more fish frys than almost anyone that you could ever meet,” owner Mike Mongan said Tuesday. “If they had a Guinness Book of Records for who's cooked most fish frys, I think I might be pretty near the top.”

He noted, “I've been in the restaurant business since I was a teenager in the 1970s. I managed a couple restaurants in the early 1980s, and I came here actually in 1984, was when I took over The Beach House. That's how many years.”

At The Beach House, Mongan’s not just frying fish on Fridays.

“My first year here, when Lent came – of course, the first day of Lent is Ash Wednesday – and when Lent came, we did not have a fish fry on that day; and the phone rang off the wall and I was really embarrassed,” he recalled. “I felt like, ‘Wow. Really missed the boat here,’ and people were upset.

“And so, I said, ‘By golly, next year, we're going to have a fish fry on Ash Wednesday’; and so, we did – and it went really good.”

Two fish fry days was an improvement, but it wasn’t enough.

A couple of years later, Mongan realized, “I get fresh fish delivery here on Tuesdays and Thursdays. … I thought, ‘Why not do a fish fry on Thursday also?’ And so, we started that, and that went over great. It just about doubled our normal Thursday business.”

He said, “Something I've noticed since we started the Wednesday fish fry, back in what would have been about the mid-1980s, I noticed a lot of other restaurants doing Wednesday fish fries. I'm not trying to take any credit, but I believe that we were the first to do a Wednesday fish fry.”

Pictured with “WNY’s Best Fish Fry” are The Beach House team members Mike Mongan, Olivia Sentz, Joe Shumate and Max Hawley.

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Champion again

Despite its celebrated history, The Beach House also found itself “pretty near the top” of “WNY’s Best Fish Fry” contest in recent years – but falling short to the likes of recent champions The Village Inn (Grand Island) and Apple Granny Restaurant (Lewiston).

That changed this spring, when Tribune/Sentinel•Dispatch readers again decided The Beach House is home to “WNY’s Best Fish Fry.”

Public comments were plentiful and included:

“It has good flavor and the sides are good, too.”

“Best tasting, large portions.”

“They give you a large proportion and it taste delicious.”

“Fish is very tender and perfectly done. French Fries were hot and crispy – excellent!”

“Always great batter and choice of sizes, large and even larger. Max gives great service.”

“Always fresh … nice and flaky … cooked perfectly … nice and crispy.”

“It means a lot,” Mongan said. “It's like, ‘Wow.’ I'm very thankful; very, very thankful that people appreciate what we do. It's a lot of work – and a lot of years of work – so, I'm really thankful. We have great customers.”

He added, “Couldn't do it without my staff. I have a great staff of people here. I really do. And I'm so thankful. We're a team. Working here, it's almost like it's not work. I'm not going to say it's play, because it's not, but it's like being a part of a team – almost like being a part of a sports team.”

Mike Mongan preps “WNY’s Best Fish Fry.”

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A Beach House fish fry

Mongan explained, “When you say, ‘fish fry,’ what that typically means is haddock. That's what's most popular. That's what people like. It's an excellent-tasting fish. It comes out of the North Atlantic Ocean. We get it fresh every week. It's very expensive. It almost doubled in price from about 15, 16 months ago. When people say fish fry, to me, it’s haddock.

“We also offer yellow pike, which actually comes out of Lake Erie. You can have your fish fry with yellow pike. But the haddock seems to be, by far and away, the most popular.”

Once the fish is received from Cheektowaga’s Schneider’s Seafood + Meats, “We use a batter commonly referred to as a ‘beer batter,’ ” Mongan said. “We have a way of mixing it that we've done for years – and I'm not going to tell you all the secrets of it, but it's pretty simple. There's a certain consistency you want with the batter. The fish gets dipped into the batter and then dipped into the hot oil in the fryer. The temperature of the oil is really important. It needs to be in that 350- to 360-degree range.”

Customers have a few choices: “You can have what we call regular size. The regular size is about 10 to 11 ounces of haddock; or, you can get the small haddock, which is maybe 7 to 8 ounces,” Mongan said. “You get two sides with that. Automatically, you're going to get coleslaw. If you don't want coleslaw, you can sub it for something. A lot of people want what we call a mini-salad, in place of the coleslaw. And then, you can have a choice of potato. We have a lot of potato choices: french fries, sweet potato fries, mashed potatoes, baked potato; onion rings; we do pasta salad all day – that could be a side that you could have instead of your coleslaw.”

The fresh haddock has a crispy exterior and is fork-tender inside. The “regular size” extends beyond the borders of a traditional dinner plate.

As much as customers know The Beach House for its famous fish fry, they also know it’s wise to be strategic when ordering.

“The whole world wants to eat roughly between about 4:30 and 7 p.m. on a Friday. OK. So, if that's when you have to eat your fish fry, have a little patience, because the whole world wants to eat at that time,” Mongan said. “If you come after 7 o'clock, things are going to go maybe a little faster. If you come in the afternoon between, say, 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock, it gets almost quiet here.”

Regardless of the day or time of the week, Mongan’s goal is to provide excellent customer service and reasonable wait times.

“My crew is very experienced,” he said. “On a Friday night, we have seven people in the kitchen. We work as a team. It's kind of almost like an assembly line-type situation. Everybody has a particular job to do. Hopefully, you don't have to move more than about three paces to do your job.”

Mongan added, “We have a system and we have specific jobs in the kitchen. We have a person that cooks the fish. Most of the time on a Friday, that's going to be me. We have a person that stands right next to me, and they basically assemble the fish frys. They put the fish on the plate, they put the potato on the plate, they put the coleslaw on the plate, or they put the fish and the different sides in the box, and that's what they do. They're going to stand there and do that for four or five hours.”

After all these years of making and eating fish frys, Mongan said he still enjoys eating them, too.

“You know, I still do,” he said. “I don't necessarily have a fish fry every week. But I had one not this past Friday, but the Friday before I had it. It was probably about 11 o'clock at night. I'm done for the day. I'm home. I took a take-home fish fry, and it was really good.

“If I didn't own the restaurant, would I be a customer buying that fish fry? Yes, I would.”

The Beach House is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays, and from 3-9 p.m. Saturdays, at 5584 East River Road.