From the dodgy spending, to the improper land dealings, to the nationally recognized culture of anti-transparency, there’s no shortage of fishy business in Richmond. But the East End has been short on business that sell fish. Now tipping those (wait for it) scales: East End Fish Co.

Tucked within The Market on 25th Street, this seafood slinger opened quietly earlier this year with a mission to hook the area’s home cooks. “I just want to do mid-Atlantic fish,” said Forrest Spaits, the fishmonger-entrepreneur literally and figuratively behind the counter, in a recent phone interview. “I'm still a middle man, but I’m trying to cut out some of those links in the supply chain.”

A recent visit to East End Fish Co., which hermit-crabbed into the independent supermarket’s existing seafood counter at the beginning of spring, revealed a case teeming with swordfish, tuna, salmon, and shrimp. Spaits, a former accountant whose forays into fishmongering began with a tumble down the “rabbit hole” of tinned offerings before shifting his focus to fresh catch, said the inventory at the counter is “whatever is currently available” from both regional distributors, as well as the small but growing network of watermen that sell directly to East End Fish Co.

The goal is eventually to source entire from the latter cohort, a higher-touch trade practice that can pay dividends in the high-demand world of specialty seafood. “This morning I drove to White Stone, VA to get some softshell crabs because the larger suppliers all ran out,” he texted The Lookout on Friday. East End Fish Co. also recently announced a partnership with Waveland Oysters, the new bivalve-based venture from Grant Mathews of Church Hill’s Bellwether Garage. Developing direct contacts is rarely so easy as finding an oysterman in the neighborhood, though. “I had to get over that embarrassment of networking,” he said, laughing. “I just DM people, send them an email, give them a cold call, and a lot of times they’ll say ‘Oh, yeah, sure,’ or ‘Hey, not me, but I know other guys who might be interested.’ It’s just one call at a time.”

East End Fish Co.’s station inside The Market at 25th Street has been a boon for the fledgling business, which is the only dedicated seafood purveyor in the East End besides Montrose Heights’ Ocean World Seafood Market. The arrangement is unusual: Spaits is technically an employee of the independent grocer, contributing his accounting and data expertise and drawing a modest salary while retooling its seafood program under the East End Fish Co. brand.

“It’s a pretty unique partnership, because there's just not a lot of commercial kitchen space in Richmond,” he said. East End Fish Co. only found its berth at The Market at 25th Street after Spaits serendipitously found himself chatting with one of the store’s executives at an unrelated hospitality-industry event in Richmond. Fellow food-and-beverage bootstrappers on the farmers market/pop-up/Hatch Kitchen grind have advised him to hang onto such a sweet set-up. He plans to: “I just really lucked out.”

Spaits is making the most of his good fortune. East End Fish Co. will soon hire its first assistant fishmonger, which should allow him to keep the counter open six days a week. It is currently closed Tuesdays, when he pops up at Birdhouse Farmers Market in Randolph, and Thursdays, his day off; expect this schedule to change once the team is set.

He considers it his mission to find ways to maintain quality across a variety of pricepoints, serving customers who can stomach West End prices but are “excited not to have to drive all the way to Yellow Umbrella” on one hand and others who may be more price-sensitive but deserve fresh seafood all the same. (Most of East End Fish Co.’s offerings can be purchased with an EBT card, though prepared items, like crab legs when steamed, are ineligible.) From whole fish at $5-8 a pound, to premium filets and shellfish at more premium prices, the aim is “something for everyone,” Spaits said. Nothing fishy about that.

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

That big cloudburst storm that hit Sunday evening dumped 1.2 inches of rain in Richmond, and fast, per metrics recorded by the National Weather Service’s forecast office in Wakefield. The deluge appeared even bigger in Chimborazo Playground, where stormwater cascaded over the retaining wall on the northern edge of the park and overwhelmed the drain in the alley that runs parallel with E. Broad St. between N. 29th and 31st Sts. Resident Sarah Sahlaney captured video of the impromptu waterfall and the flooding that it caused, which she was kind enough to share with The Lookout. I posted this rough string-out to the L’Affair Pétanque Liveblog on Monday:

Sahlaney said Sunday evening was the first time she’d seen water run over the top of that portion of the wall, which is directly north of the park’s new, unfinished pétanque courts.

As The Lookout first reported in mid-May, Richmond’s Department of Parks, Recreation, and Communities Services (DPR) failed to obtain the proper stormwater permit for its construction of the additional courts in Chimborazo Park. That project, which has stirred much aggravation in Church Hill over City Hall’s poor communication, lack of transparency, and unpermitted construction—as well as spirited debate over whether the ~$68,000 now earmarked for expanding the niche French bowling game’s footprint in the 3.5-acre park might be better used on improvements with broader appeal—is currently paused.

As I’ve previously reported, DPR is retroactively pursuing the appropriate permit from Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which delegates evaluations of sites within Richmond to the city’s Department of Public Utilities.

The flooding from last Sunday’s storm appears to have dislodged the silt fence that the department installed after The Lookout’s report on the missing permit, rendering the site out of compliance for the entire workweek following the storm. The ongoing disrepair runs contrary to DEQ’s Stormwater Management Handbook. “Inspect silt fences immediately after each rainfall and at least daily during prolonged rainfall,” it reads. “Make any repairs immediately.”

Richmond’s Department of Public Works has been paving streets throughout Church Hill North this month. The process turned up a glimpse of local infrastructural history at N. 29th and Q Sts., where Church Hill photog Drew Olsen snapped some shots of what appear to be old streetcar rails embedded in brick pavers.

I’ve written previously about Richmond’s pioneering electric streetcar system, which was the world’s first when it began operating in 1888; it was sadly shut down in 1949 to cede the city’s public streets to private automobiles. Various maps surfaced on reddit’s prodigious /r/mapporn forum suggest the rails Olsen spotted would have belonged to a line operated by long-defunct Richmond Passenger & Power Co.

At The Lookout’s request, Yesterdays power user/cartographic visual archivist/area man John Pole dug through the MapRVA-built platform’s vast reserve of historical Richmond photos and managed to dig up a couple that show a car crash on the street in 1954. Though the pictures—sourced from a private portfolio now held by The Valentine that contains photos “related to the activities of the Richmond Fire Department”—were taken half a decade after the system was decommissioned, they show rails and bricks that appear to match the ones Olsen saw uncovered by DPW’s prep work on contemporary Q St.

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.