The pending departure of the Fulton Fish Market is “sad,” according to Charlie Blair, but so far he has been able to stifle his tears.

In fact he may hide his tears all the way to the bank.

When the fish leave, people will come, he thinks, and people are customers for his very upscale MarkJoseph Steakhouse on Water Street, within smelling distance of the remains of the market.

Mr. Blair may be the first beneficiary of the loss of the Fulton Fish Market. His usual Wall Street crowd won’t abandon him, he figures, but with the market on the way out, and housing on the way in, that means more people.

“We’ll get residentials,” as he calls it – folks who will live in the new neighborhood, and will be able to walk to his restaurant and bar over ancient cobblestone streets.

“Already they have started renovating old brownstones around here,” he said. “It will be a new neighborhood.”

That and a $247 million housing development right across the street that is nearly complete and will have more than 100 units. That’s just for starters. Rumors of massive development of the area grow, and change, daily.

“Yes, it is sad to see such an old institution (the market) go,” he told The New York Sun.

And then there was a “but.”

“But they haven’t been bringing in fish in boats in years. They bring them in in tractor trailer trucks,” he said.

“And they aren’t good for the cobblestones,” Mr. Blair said with a straight face.

It’s not that MarkJoseph (Yes, it is one word) is doing badly. The restaurant sells about 250 dinners on a Saturday night, Mr. Blair said, and more than 100 lunches on a regular basis – at about $40 a steak.

And there was the “but.”

“But business is way down during lent, especially on Fridays. A lot of Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays. And a lot give up drinking for Lent,” he said.

Mr. Blair, a native of Maspeth, Queens, learned his business through nine years of working at Peter Luger Steakhouse’ Long Island branch, and through owning a series of small pubs.

And in Maspeth he also learned to eat meat on Fridays. His grandmother, a German-born Protestant, fed him steaks on Fridays – much to the chagrin of his Irish-Catholic grandfather – because she believed honesty, decency and straight talk were more important than dietary habits.

“It’s not what you put in your mouth, it is what comes out,” Mr. Blair said was her motto.

Mr. Blair, who closes MarkJoseph on Sunday so his family can attend Mass together, was too honest, decent and straight talking, in chatting with the Sun to wish, out loud, that the folks who buy the units across the street aren’t Catholics.