As stone crab season begins, a beloved Miami seafood spot starts a new chapter

In Miami — and Kendall and Fort Lauderdale and the Florida Keys and all of South Florida— everyone has their favorite spot for stone crabs. Monty’s in Coconut Grove. Michael’s Genuine in the Design District. Tiny but mighty FreshCo Fish in a Kendall strip mall. And, as always, Joe’s Stone Crab in South Beach, which has been serving up the juicy claws with bibs and mustard sauce for more than 100 years.

In Miami’s Flagami neighborhood, the stone crab magnet is the family-owned Catch of the Day. For 27 years at the modest restaurant on busy Le Jeune Road near the airport, owner Miguel “Mike” Ferreiro served all sorts of seafood, including the crabs Miami craves, to locals and tourists alike.

But earlier this year, Catch of the Day’s future was uncertain. Ferreiro, who had been diagnosed with stage four brain cancer, decided to sell the business but wanted to find a buyer he trusted to continue his legacy as a neighborhood spot with plenty of seafood and no pretensions.

He found that buyer right across the street: Eric Castellanos, who with his wife Kali owns Latin Cafe 2000 and Bored Cuban. Castellanos took over Catch of the Day in mid-September, just in time to get ready for this year’s stone crab season, which begins Wednesday and runs through May 1.

Castellanos, who is opening a third Bored Cuban location in South Miami this fall, said he and Ferreiro knew each other and maintained a friendly relationship, even working together on a cruise when a distributor invited them both.

“We’re literally across the street,” he says. “So I would eat at his place, and he would eat at mine. We were always friendly. He was a nice guy, a great guy.”

So early this summer, when Ferreiro came to Castellanos and told him about the diagnosis, he also asked if Castellanos might be interested in taking over.

“He told me, ‘I’m selling the place. Are you interested?’ ” Castellanos says. “And I said I would love to look at it. It’s a little bit different than what I do, but I would of course look at it.”

The next question: If he bought the concept, would Castellanos want to change the restaurant to another Latin Cafe or Bored Cuban or a new concept?

That was easier to answer. Castellanos said no immediately.

“I said, ‘Why would I do that?’ ” he recalls. “It’s a 27-year-old brand that he created that has a tremendous following. He did very well there. Why would I change that? I said, ‘I would love to keep your legacy going.’ And he loved that. I think that’s why he wanted me to do this and why he really pushed for this to happen quickly.”

While Castellanos has plenty of restaurant experience, he had to master a steep learning curve quickly, particularly with the busiest time of the year right around the corner. While Latin Cafe 2000 has a few seafood items on the menu, like filets of mahi and snapper, it doesn’t deal with the sheer volume required to stock a restaurant like Catch of the Day, which serves platters of oysters and clams and snow crab claws, fish and chips and pan con minuta (a Cuban-style fried fish sandwich).

“Dealing with the fresh seafood is a whole other animal,” Castellanos admits. “But the chef and the staff are great. They’ve been teaching me, and we put our director of operations and our CEO in there from day one, just to learn everything. I think we’ve learned tremendously in the last three weeks.”

Business is surely likely to boom Wednesday. Catch of the Day chef Yisel Vera, who has worked there for 10 years, says the first day of stone crab season is the busiest day of the year.

“We have customers who come every year for stone crabs, and they’ve already been asking the question: ‘Do you have them yet?’ ” she says, laughing. “It’s what people know Catch of the Day for. It’s always an exciting day.”

She said that she’s thrilled that Catch of the Day can continue as a seafood restaurant, especially in an area that is seeing changes, like the old Hereford Grill nearby reopening as an Argentine steakhouse.

“I’m very grateful, very happy,” she says. “I can’t wait to see more. I know Eric is doing great things here, and this is the perfect location with all the new construction going on. The transition so far has been great.”

Castellanos said he’s prepared for the opening of the season (or at least he thinks he is). He has no plans for big changes, focusing instead on integrating his business systems, considering upgrading some kitchen equipment and refreshing the look and design in small but effective ways.

And he hopes Ferreiro, who died in September, would be proud of his work.

“There’s great energy in the Miami vibe here, and that’s all going to stay the same,” he says. “We’re excited to carry that forward. We’ll change little things but not drastically.

“What Mike created here for 27 years was very special. The staff has been so loyal, and that shows you what kind of place this is. I’m proud that I was able to do this and able to keep this legacy going for him.”

Catch of the Day

Where: 1050 NW 42nd Ave., Miami

Hours: Noon-10:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday; noon-midnight Friday-Sunday

More information: www.catchofthedayrestaurant.com or 305-446-4500

This story was originally published October 15, 2025 at 4:30 AM.