One area of Market at 25th has a distinct scent from the others. You’ll find it if you walk past the bakery case, the produce stacks, and a few neighbors chatting about nothing urgent while leaning against something. Forrest Spaits, the owner of East End Fish Co., a 400-square-foot fish counter, appears to have quietly decided that Church Hill needed real fish and then just went ahead and made it happen.
Most mornings, before the lunch crowd even considers coming, he’s sold out. It’s worth taking a moment to consider that detail alone.
Spaits is not a veteran of the restaurant business or a trained chef working backward into retail. His affinity for seafood is deeper and more ancient than that; he had a lifelong bond with the sea that eventually made it impossible to maintain as a pastime or side interest. There is a certain type of person who eventually comes to the conclusion that their career and their passion must coincide. It appears that he is one of them. It wasn’t immediately apparent whether that resulted in business success, but the empty display case every morning makes a pretty obvious case.
It’s not just the fish that makes East End Fish Co. fascinating. It’s the format and the location. A fishmonger operating in a corner of a local market without the overhead of a standalone storefront is an example of a model that makes sense in theory but seldom holds up in practice. After the novelty wears off, the majority of small food operations of this type quietly disappear. This one doesn’t seem to be fading. One early morning sale at a time, it seems to be establishing a consistent clientele while still finding its footing as best it can.
Cities twice the size of Richmond find it difficult to produce the kind of local food culture that Church Hill has spent years cultivating. At the heart of that is Market at 25th, where the bakery remembers what you ordered last Tuesday and the produce vendor knows your name. There was no assurance that a fishmonger would succeed in that setting. However, it’s difficult to ignore how effortlessly East End Fish Co. seems to fit in there, following the beat of a business where customers genuinely show up and make purchases from familiar faces.
Richmond’s food scene has always had a peculiar attitude toward authenticity; it is wary of fads and strangely devoted to establishments that don’t make a lot of effort. Spaits might have profited from just carrying out the action without much fanfare. No meticulously planned Instagram launch, no complex branding campaign. Just a fish counter that sells fresh fish when it opens in the morning.
Whether this stays small by design or eventually outgrows its corner is still unknown. For the time being, however, those who arrive early enough to receive something appear to be quite pleased with the arrangement. To be honest, the fish selling out every morning may be the only indication that counts.
