Joey’s Seafood Shack

Naima Rauam painted watercolors of it in her make-shift smokehouse studio; Joseph Mitchell crafted his 1940s' novel Old Mr. Flood around it and Vero Beach fishmonger and restaurateur Joey Fenyak remembers it as the first place he sold his freshly dug clams. New York’s Fulton Fish Market, the largest wholesale fish market in the United States was where Joey began his 30-plus-year career in the
seafood business.

Joey, owner of Joey’s Seafood Shack on U.S. Highway 1 in Vero Beach, grew up on Long Island and started digging for clams on Lake Ronkonkoma at the age of 12. He would then take them down to New York’s South Street to sell at the Fulton Fish Market. He reminisces about those early days as a young boy when fish sold for 25 cents a pound. 

According to Joey, the market had no refrigeration and would open at 2 a.m. to avoid the heat of the day. The vendors would place the day’s fresh catch over ice and sell to area merchants and restaurants. By 8 a.m., just as New Yorkers began the hustle and bustle of the work week, the seafood market would be closing up and the vendors hosing down the sidewalks.