Owners of The Naked Fish in Paso Robles switch from sushi to brunch
Paso Robles has a new brunch option at the Morning After Cafe — or MAC — located at the former location of Naked Fish restaurant off of Downtown City Park.
The MAC is run by the same team that owned and operated the now shuttered Naked Fish locations in North County and downtown San Luis Obispo — Daniel Cardinale and Karen Kynett.
The MAC is a fast-casual restaurant serving everything from house-made biscuits and burritos to bottomless mimosas.
“We just love breakfast as a whole and wanted to provide our community with something a little more out of the classical range of the breakfast places around here,” MAC co-owner Daniel Cardinale said.
The food at the MAC goes beyond traditional diner fare.
The restaurant opened on Feb. 18 with a breakfast and lunch menu featuring signature items like sweet bread pudding french toast, Cuban-style sandwich and pastries baked fresh daily.
The menu also includes four types of breakfast burritos, three breakfast sandwiches and four biscuit options.
Crafting an engaging drinks menu was also important to the restaurant owners, particularly Cardinale, who said he’s the type of person to order multiple drinks, from coffees to Blood Mary’s, to accompany his brunch.
The MAC serves bottomless mimosas, sparkling, white and red wine and eight local beers on tap. People who need their morning coffee can sip a cup of locally roasted Joebella.
If you order a breakfast burrito, don’t skip the MAC’s house-made hot sauce, he said.
“It’s one of those sauces that you want to put on everything,” Cardinale said.
The restaurant is also selling its hot sauce to patrons who want to take some home with them, he said.
Coronavirus pandemic presented challenges to local restaurant owners
The decision to close The Naked Fish location in Paso Robles to make way for the MAC wasn’t an easy one, Cardinale said.
“I love The Naked Fish here,” Cardinale said. “I’m super bummed to let it go, but after the last couple years through COVID and COVID and more COVID, it’s created a lot of challenges for us as a business.”
The rising cost of fish and other ingredients imported from Asian countries made it tricky to keep prices affordable for restaurant patrons and maintain a profit for the business, he said.
“We didn’t want to have to raise prices any more,” head chef and general manager of the MAC Jake Marino said. “We wanted to provide a cool, new experience for our customers.”
This is the second time the restaurant owners shut the doors to a location of The Naked Fish in SLO County.
In 2019, the San Luis Obispo location closed after about five years.
In an interview with The Tribune in 2019, Cardinale cited the high rents as a barrier to keeping the sushi restaurant open.
Cardinale joined forces with Kynett in about 2014 to help run The Naked Fish locations, he said.
Although the San Luis Obispo County locations have closed, the original South Lake Tahoe location for The Naked Fish is still going strong after 20 years, Cardinale said.
