Bowling Green will soon add the fresh fish eatery Eau Bistro to its ever-growing list of restaurants, with an opening date scheduled within the next few weeks.

The restaurant will be in Stadium Park Plaza in space that once made up a portion of the Mariah’s restaurant, which closed in 2022. The other portion is currently occupied by the Italian eatery Tra Di Noi Ristorante.

Brian O’Brien, who co-owns Eau Bistro with his wife Kathy, said Eau Bistro will differ from traditional seafood establishments, saying choices like “all you can eat shrimp” will not be present.

The restaurant will instead feature fresh fish of all types including ocean varieties, with steak, seasonal game and pasta dishes along with vegetarian and gluten-free options rounding out the menu.

“The people that I’ve talked to about it are pretty excited about it,” he said. “The first comment is that, ‘well, there is no real fresh fish place in Bowling Green,’ so that’s good. I’m hoping we’re filling that niche like we’ve done in the past in other places.”

O’Brien said he has always had a love for cooking – something he gets from his mother.

“I caught the bug and continued to work in restaurants during school,” he said.

Originally from St. Louis, O’Brien said the couple’s entry into the fresh fish restaurant business came in the form of Oceano Bistro, one of “a couple” locations they ran in St. Louis.

For Oceano Bistro, O’Brien said freshly caught fish was shipped to the business “from all the coasts,” spanning from Alaska to Boston and the Gulf region to Baja California in Mexico. He said this model will continue with Eau Bistro in Bowling Green.

After a buyout from their partner, they moved their fresh fish operations to Marco Island, Florida, which sits on the Gulf Coast south of Naples. Their restaurant was called the Fin Bistro, and operated from 2012 until it was sold last year.

“The area, believe it or not, in southwest Florida at the time, did not have a true fresh fish place,” he said. “Most of the restaurants there were serving frozen fish from a box.”

O’Brien said this, combined with an abundance of Italian restaurants in the area, made for a “niche there that needed to be filled.” He said the Fin Bistro is still in business.

He said after the Fin Bistro sale, he and his wife “wanted some seasons back” and were looking to move back up north.

The couple currently lives in Orlinda, Tennessee, and visited Bowling Green frequently after their move. O’Brien said during their visits, they noticed a lack of fish eateries in the city “other than Red Lobster.”

“We were originally looking for the Nashville area, but that market seems to be really oversaturated and way expensive,” O’Brien said. “(Then) we discovered Bowling Green.”