This Utah Fast Food Chain Uses Halibut For Its Fish Sandwiches

Think fast food, and fish isn't often the first protein that comes to mind — chicken and beef dominate convenience eating. Nevertheless, there are a variety of affordable seafood offerings on the market. Head to Utah, and you'll even find a halibut sandwich sold at Salt Lake City-area Apollo Burger.

Halibut is an unusual choice for quick service chains. Sure, it boasts a delectably mild taste and firm flesh that is versatile for many cooking applications — but it's expensive. Distribution struggles, matched with its desirable culinary qualities, mean the fish retails for as much as $40 a pound — not an ingredient cost suitable for fast food.

Yet Apollo Burger circumvents such price roadblocks and sells the fish in an $8.99 sandwich, which comes with accoutrements like tartar sauce, tomatoes, and lettuce. The halibut is breaded and laid between cornmeal-dusted buns, crafting a classic experience. You can also order the protein as a $13.99 platter, which comes with salad, fries, and bread. Intriguingly, the fish is the only seafood that appears at Apollo Burger, a Greek-owned chain better known for topping burgers with pastrami. It's a subtle supply-chain quirk that sets the business apart.

Sample the best fast food fish sandwiches, and you'll find a few seafood varieties serving as the patty. Especially common is pollock, employed in McDonald's Filet-O-Fish, Whataburger's limited-release (yet incredibly popular) Whatacatch, as well as in Wendy's fish sandwich, which comes coated in crispy panko. Pollock serves as a favorite of the fast-food industry for multiple reasons. Most pertinently, the fish is cheap: You can find pollock for as low as $2 a pound. Unlike often unreliable halibut hauls, pollock supply is more dependable, all while offering a pleasant, lean, mild, and white-meat composition. Such qualities make it the go-to for burgers and fish sticks, especially in the American seafood market.

To a lesser extent, you'll also find cod-based burgers, like in Culver's North Atlantic Cod Sandwich, as well as in A&W's seasonally available Wild-Caught Cod Burger. However, the fish lost economic dependability starting in the 1970s due to trade issues, later worsened by overfishing. Subsequently, while a few chains continue to serve the fish, pollock has cemented itself as the most commercially dependable option. Sure, breaded halibut burgers are available from a few food suppliers, but Apollo's affordable halibut sandwich strongly diverges from the norm.