Anthony Webster has been coming to the fish market along the Southwest Waterfront fish market for as long as he can remember. It’s where his family would buy bushels of crabs for big gatherings and shrimp and crawfish for seafood boils.
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When he was old enough to bike there himself from his home in Barry Farm, Webster said he would tuck a paper bag full of crabs under one arm and steer his way back to Southeast D.C. with the other.
But on Saturday, Webster, 53, looked out at the District’s historic fish market like he’d never seen it before. The barge bearing the large flagship sign for Captain White Seafood City was gone.
“Can you believe it?” he said, his voice hushed in wonder. “Oh, my goodness, look.”
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Webster had seen videos of onlookers watching in disbelief early Thursday as the oversized sign atop Captain White’s main barge floated down the channel and away from the Wharf. But still, he said, he had to come see it for himself: the gaping hole in the middle of the fish market.
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“It’s like a stab in the side to see it like this,” he said.
Shelly Brown, 56, shook her head.
“I never even knew you could see Hains Point from here,” she said.
Brown and Webster are among the scores of customers stunned and unnerved by the White family’s decision to end a nearly 50-year run at the Wharf.
Captain White pulled up anchor Thursday without so much as a word to customers and floated down the channel. Managers announced via social media the next day that the shop would remain open and operating out of one of its smaller barges through the end of November, but the business is leaving the Wharf for good before the end of the year. The fishmonger hopes to reopen in a new location “in the District-Maryland-Virginia area,” a statement posted to Facebook said.
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It was a difficult choice to make, said longtime owner Penny White, who has spent most of her life working along the waterfront. But the family didn’t feel they had much of a choice.
Development at historic fish market drives wedge between businesses
The abrupt move comes as developers have begun shifting their focus toward the final phase of the Wharf’s ongoing redevelopment project and several months after Captain White owners lost a 2015 lawsuit filed against one of the Wharf’s main developers, Hoffman-Madison Waterfront, and the D.C. government. The owners had alleged that the ongoing redevelopment of the Wharf violated the terms of Captain White’s lease agreement and threatened to put them out of business.
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Though the lawsuit sought an injunction to stop construction on projects that Captain White owners said would infringe on the District’s historic fish market, development has continued. Six years later, the White family is leaving a Wharf transformed by redevelopment and a rapidly gentrifying community along the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood.
“This is not something we wanted to do; leaving is not what we wanted,” Penny White said Friday. “I loved doing this work. I loved to feed and serve this city, where I’ve spent my whole adult life. Right now, we just feel really let down.”
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White raised her children — and then her grandchildren — on the three barges that made up the floating open-air market of Captain White Seafood City. Many have stayed on to work at the family business, growing into their roles hawking fish, shrimp, oysters and bushels of blue crabs.
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The Whites declined to elaborate on their reasons for leaving, pointing instead to the complaints outlined in the lawsuit, which claimed the business had been subject to developer harassment in an effort to drive them out of business and effectively annex the fish market into the Wharf. The lawsuit alleged that the developer had blocked customer access points to businesses in the fish market, towed the vehicles of workers and otherwise impeded their ability to conduct business as usual.
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Hoffman Madison Waterfront, the developer named in the Whites’ lawsuit, issued a statement Friday rebutting the business’s account and saying the fish market will continue to serve the District, even after Captain White sails away. The group noted that other vendors in the market would remain, including Jessie Taylor Seafood, which the developer described as “the anchor of the market.”
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In a Facebook post on Friday, the family-run business thanked its customers for sticking with them through years of inconvenient construction, detours, fencing and “the new pay to shop parking and the numerous tickets you all have gotten just to get a 1/2 bushel or dozen crabs.”
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The post, which as of Friday evening had more than 2,300 likes and was shared more than 900 times, filled throughout the day with comments from customers decrying the District’s ongoing redevelopment of the Wharf and lamenting the loss of another beloved vestige of old D.C.
Webster, who has watched the waterfront transform over the last decade, said he thinks the gleaming new Wharf has brought fresh energy and verve to the area, though he worries about Washingtonians who can’t afford the neighborhood’s new price tag may be left behind.
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“I love it here. It’s beautiful. It’s serene,” Webster said. “But I also got a $100 ticket the other day when I took a chance just to come down this way.”
Captain White Seafood City has operated out of the District’s 200-year-old Municipal Fish Market since 1972. Penny White said the business took pride in feeding the people of the District, no matter their background or income level. Captain White accepted payment from families receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps, the owner said, alongside orders from “people living in million-dollar condos.”
Captain White Seafood City remains OPEN for business through Thanksgiving!!! The Captain White Family and Crew cannot...
Posted by Captain White's Seafood on Friday, November 5, 2021
White said leaving their home at the Wharf adds more heartbreak to an already difficult year — longtime owner Billy Ray White, who was married to Penny White, died in a car crash last year.
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Hoffman Madison Waterfront, the developer, wrote in a statement that business turnover at the fish market is part of its history in the District.
“During its centuries of existence, the Municipal Fish Market has been home to dozens of different fish, produce, and food vendors and will continue to do so after the departure of Captain Whites,” the statement said. “Years before construction of the Wharf began, the Wharf development and operations teams worked tirelessly with District Officials to provide additional customer parking, security, and sanitation services to help preserve and grow the existing customer base of the Municipal Fish Market.”
Officials from the Wharf directed questions about the departure to the Hoffman Madison Waterfront developer team, and the Southwest Business Improvement District declined to comment.