Forgotten Proposals: The Jacksonville Quay

[Ocklawaha]

Maybe a better point with the Riverside Arts Market is you don't have to build a big expensive building to have a market that people will come to.

A central fish market might be interesting, but I have a fish market less than a mile from my house (excluding the grocery stores). To get to the central retail fish market I'd have to travel twelve miles and pass two other fish markets to get there.  Obviously I'm not the target market for that central fish market.  You need people living nearby.
Then again I'd drive thirty miles to put the boat in and maybe catch a fish. But that is a whole other discussion.

Hate to disagree before I drink my breakfast... "Oh crap, somebody just put juice in my juice bottle!" (W. C. Fields). I would drive from my new perch south of Orangedale. I think you missed a detail here friend Overstreet. A REAL fish market wouldn't just be a place with a freezer or ice chest full of critters. A real fish and farm market would have dozens of wholesaler's haggling with Winn Dixie, Publix and Food Lion officers every morning. Fresh catch of the day could indeed be off loaded on the downtown waterfront. Mix in the exotic, every restaurant in town would be there, some might even be selling fish and chips, fresh oysters, popcorn shrimp and such. This is no little fish department in a big shopping center, this would be big... HUGE. Think of a quay as Disney World for the tastebuds.

OCKLAWAHA

[Overstreet]

The local fishery could not support that operation.  That location downtown does not lend itself to the logistics of the fish industry in Jacksonville. You'd be forcing it to move there for entertainment not for business.

[BridgeTroll]

The local fishery could not support that operation.

That was my thought much earlier in the thread... The shrimping industry is nearly dead... same with Snapper... unless you are gonna sell mullet at the quay there does not seem to be much "local" product available.

[blizz01]

Crabs.

[Fallen Buckeye]

I just saw a show about a kind of fish market in the Phillipines where people can buy fresh fish and veggies on side of the market and then once they're done shopping they take the sea food they bought to the other side of the market. There are lots of cooks set up there and you give them the ingredients and tell them how you want them to cook it. Then they cook you a meal and serve it with your ingredients. I wonder if that could work in the U.S. with the health codes and everything, but can you imagine? Have chefs of many different specialties set up on the other side of the market to cook your freshly caught fish or mayport shrimp or crabs. That would be a tourist draw for sure. I don't know the first thing about running a business or I'd set it up myself. lol.