Forrest Spaits of East End Fish Co. at The Market at 25th
Local fishmonger Forrest Spaits grew up on StarKist tuna and Steve Irwin. He made his mom take him to the aquarium in Virginia Beach once a week, and he would sit in front of the tube watching Animal Planet’s “River Monsters.” He can still recall seeing schools of thousands of shimmering spadefish on the deep-sea fishing trip that changed it all — and he could probably teach you a thing or two about invasive species.
Today, Spaits is the face behind the counter at The Market at 25th, and the sole seafood purveyor at the Birdhouse Farmers Market. In March, he launched East End Fish Co., a new business focused on making sustainable, locally sourced seafood more accessible to the community.
“As an adult, I got more into food, and I think I just kind of combined those,” he says. “What really sold me on seafood was seeing fish butchery [more]. I thought, ‘That’s really cool.’”
Originally from the Tidewater area, Spaits grew up around both fishing and entrepreneurship — his mother is a bartender turned business owner, his stepfather a fisherman. The interest was always there, but it wasn’t until the pandemic, and a desire to leave office work behind, that it sharpened into something actionable.
“My interest in food really grew during COVID, getting more into cooking, restaurants and food culture,” he says. “It just kind of became my passion.”
While sourdough and banana bread defined many people’s early pandemic days, Spaits noticed another trend: tinned fish. “I thought, ‘Why aren’t more people doing this in the United States?’”
A microcannery was his first plan, but startup costs made it unrealistic. “I went back to the drawing board,” Spaits says.
The shift led him to assess Richmond’s seafood landscape, recognizing a gap that was hard to ignore. Although the region is home to Tuckahoe Seafood, Bon Air Seafood, Shoreline Seafood Market and Yellow Umbrella Provisions, those shops are primarily on the west side of the city or outside it, leaving East End residents with limited access to fresh fish.
“What do people eat around here?” Spaits asks. “There’s really nothing in this half of the city.”
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Fresh seafood at The Market at 25th
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Fresh seafood at The Market at 25th
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Fresh seafood at The Market at 25th
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Fresh seafood at The Market at 25th
Spaits sees his new gig at The Market at 25th as the starting point for his company. There, he stocks grocery store standards including salmon, shrimp and cod and often steers customers toward lesser-seen cuts such as black sea bass, golden tilefish and white perch.
“I’m just meeting people from the neighborhood, chatting with folks who’ve never been in the store before, explaining what we’re doing,” he says. “It’s pretty organic.”
That interaction is central to his approach, and it’s something he plans to expand at Birdhouse Farmers Market. “I knew I wanted to have some sort of [customer-facing] interaction,” he says. “There’s no one really doing this at farmers markets, either. I want to focus on the mid-Atlantic; seasonal, local seafood.”
Behind the scenes, he’s been building the business deliberately: joining VCU’s Shelfie Program, attending Church Hill Association meetings to talk with residents, networking at the Seafood Expo trade show, touring fish farms and hatcheries, and working with regional distributors such as Sam Rust Seafood and Reliant Fish Co.
“We need to make [seafood] more sustainable — and have more foot traffic,” Spaits says. “Right now I’m trying to soft launch it and build a little bit more of a following.”
Early signs are promising, with customers noting that they saw his posts online and decided to stop by, asking questions and trying new products. But Spaits is also clear-eyed about the neighborhood’s economic realities.
“The balancing act comes in because we have a good amount of customers on SNAP benefits,” he says. “This is a walkable neighborhood; that’s a home run.”
He often carries whole fish at more approachable price points and promotes species including blue catfish, an invasive fish that’s abundant in the region and ecologically important to remove. Looking ahead, Spaits hopes to deepen ties with conservation groups such as the James River Association, continue building a supply chain based in the mid-Atlantic and adopt waste-reduction methods.
Currently, the focus remains on building steady momentum and simply trying to get more people to cook fish and try what’s local. For Spaits, the goal isn’t just selling seafood — it’s reshaping how consumers see it, one conversation and cut at a time.
“We just need to get back to making real food again, less prepackaged stuff,” he says, “and paying attention to what’s available right around us.”
