April 1, 2013 — Something about the limited amount of fresh, sustainable seafood in Brooklyn smelled fishy to Samantha Lee, Dennis O’Connor and Sean Dixon. The trio decided to put their own spin on that old proverb about giving a man a fish, by starting Village Fishmonger, a community supported fishery that functions like Community Supported Agriculture for seafood–a CSF.
“Seafood’s been this black hole where there’s only very few spots in the city that average consumers have access to,” says Lee, who lives in Brooklyn Heights. “It’s not a high-margin business, so I think it gets really hard for mom-and-pop stores to supply it, and people want the ability to choose something that’s not packaged in styrofoam and plastic at a national chain. It kind of just seemed like a problem that we could try and help solve.”
A variety of businesses based in and serving Brooklyn are dedicated to filling that sustainable seafood void. Sea to Table helps restaurants source good fish, and there are a variety of CSFs delivering fresh, sustainably-caught fish to our borough.
Village Fishmonger sources mainly finfish, but sometimes shellfish, from small fisherman co-ops off the coasts of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey, and membership ranges from $90 to $360 for a 12-week commitment. Of its current 150 members, Lee says half pick up their fish at one of three Brooklyn sites–Huckleberry Bar, Choice Greene or Brooklyn Commune. A fourth pick-up spot opens tomorrow, April 2, at Four & Twenty Blackbirds. There are also six pick-up spots in Manhattan, and future CSF locations in Queens and the Bronx are a possibility.
Read the full story at Brooklyn Based