Opening a restaurant in Miami-Dade County, as you may or may not know, is something of a marathon. The journey is almost always rocky, with the usual potholes littering the path: Permit problems. Delivery delays. Grease trap nightmares.

But surviving a life-threatening health scare is really what makes owners Mario and Maya Palazon value the steady stream of customers coming through the door at their new FreshCo Fish Grill & Market in Downtown Doral.

The plan to expand their Kendall restaurant and seafood market, which was named one of the best in the U.S. in 2024 by Yelp, began more than three years ago. Developer Armando Codina, founder of Codina Partners — which is now overseen by his daughter Ana Codina — came to the Kendall location for a meal after reading about the restaurant in the Miami Herald. The meal eventually led to a plan to build and open the new FreshCo.

The work slogged forward. But in January 2025, Maya Palazon had a sudden heart attack and had to be rushed to the hospital. She needed a double bypass, and suddenly days that were supposed to be spent at the Kendall restaurant or dealing with issues in Doral swiftly turned into a lengthy hospital stay.

Now, Maya Palazon is quick to put those months in the past. The new restaurant has opened just before the first anniversary of the surgery, right around Christmas, and she is not only back on her feet but putting in 50 hour weeks (albeit with more medication than she used to take and, hopefully, taking time for rest when she needs it).

“It was so much work getting here,” she says. “We went through so much. To finally be able to have it open is wonderful. It’s so rewarding to see the place full of customers. We’re rocking and rolling. We’re committed to this.”

The only word Mario Palazon, a Key West native who opened the original FreshCo in Kendall in 2018, can use to describe the opening is “phenomenal.”

“I take a deep breath, and it’s like, wow, finally,” he says. “We’ve over exceeded our expectations, and we haven’t even had the grand opening yet.”

A tribute to Key West

Palazon worked as a seafood wholesaler in Key West for more than 20 years, and so though the restaurant has design touches that link to its modest Kendall predecessor, it’s truly a love letter to Key West.

Brightly painted lobster traps hang from the ceiling. A Conch Republic flag is proudly displayed on one wall. There are roosters in the rafters, and soon you’ll hear crowing every hour on the hour. Don’t worry: It’s a recording. These aren’t real roosters — the famous Blue Heaven restaurant is still in Key West, and anyway, the city of Doral surely has regulations about that sort of thing.

But the Keys spirit is strong. A painting of a well-known fishing boat hangs on a wall, while a mural of Fred the Tree, the iconic Australian pine growing on the old Seven Mile Bridge, takes up another wall. Best of all, there’s a replica of the Southernmost Point buoy right in front of the restaurant, virtually begging you to come take a selfie and pretend, just for an hour or so, that you’re in that not-so-distant land where the ocean meets the gulf and the best seafood Florida has to offer is within your grasp.

Part of a thriving Doral lineup that includes Bombay Darbar, Pura Vida, The Doral Yard and the always-packed Mister 01 pizzeria, the new FreshCo is much bigger than the Kendall shop, with 127 seats, some of which are outside on a patio, a popular destination for lunch during the recent cold spell. There’s a bar where you can watch the latest game — Palazon, a long-suffering Miami Dolphins fan, also cheers for the Miami Heat, the Florida Panthers and the University of Miami. Soon, you’ll find live entertainment on the weekends — a little reggae, a little Jimmy Buffett, any sort of music that evokes the feeling of the Keys.

You may even spot Palazon on stage playing the bongos: “I used to play them, so you never know. I told my wife, ‘That’s my dream,’ to play them on stage in my own restaurant.”

Favorites from Kendall, and new options for Doral

The menu is similar to the original restaurant, with starters like FreshCo’s famous conch fritters, Key lime “fish wings” (fried snapper tossed in Key lime pepper seasoning), fish dip, mussels and more. You can order just about any type of fish from snapper and grouper to lobster and shrimp in BLTs, Reubens, po’ boys and Phillys as well as fried, blackened or grilled (non seafood lovers can opt for chicken). You can get any fish you see cooked any number of ways, with special FreshCo sauces and sides.

The new FreshCo also offers the brand’s blue crab cakes, which Palazon also provides to other distributors, and stone crabs (and now is a good time to buy them — ”supply has been outrageous, and the prices have been extremely low,” Palazon advises).

There’s a new ceviche bar and a few new items, like a Bang Bang salmon that’s the perfect blend of mild heat and sweetness. The most important thing to try, as any native Floridian knows, is the famous FreshCo hogfish in any form you prefer, though we are partial to the perfectly cooked fried whole fish, which is served in chunks so you’re not forced to pick through the bones yourself.

FreshCo has kept its market component, which allows customers to purchase fish or stone crabs at the counter and take them home. The cases are stocked with plenty of local fish, but Mario Palazon has also added some non-local options due to the change in locale and the fact that many South Americans live nearby.

“We have added corvina, which is an important fish in this area, and we also brought over branzino, which comes from the Mediterranean and is very popular here,” he says.

“Farther south in Kendall, they want local fish. But you have to know the makeup of the city you’re in, and we’ve learned this is what a lot of our customers want. Octopus is also big here. Every restaurant up and down the street has octopus! Most of the places grill it, but ours is cooked a little differently, in a sauce.”

Mario Palazon has also acquired the rights to Bidi Bidi Flan Flan, a brand of flan that will be made and sold in the restaurant and to other retailers (much like the crab cakes), with flavors like classic, chocolate, guava, coffee and coconut. They’re good enough to rival FreshCo’s tasty, authentic Key lime pie.

But one of the biggest joys for the couple is how FreshCo is evolving into a true family business. They’re watching their daughter Mia, a business school graduate, working hard at the restaurant, learning the business inside and out, and, as Maya Palazon says, “creeping into the role of front of the house manager.”

“To see her walking around the floor, to see her taking authority, taking a leadership role, is wonderful,” she says. “There’s nothing that makes you more proud as a parent.”

FreshCo Fish Market & Grill

Where: 8455 NW 53rd St., G103, Doral

Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday

Reservations: Resy

More information: freshcofish.com

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