Lacking the population density of downtown, Montgomery County streets aren’t exactly teeming with food trucks.
But Missy Carr, co-owner of Go Fish! a truck that started rolling locally this summer, has snagged an interesting niche—a mobile seafood market that provides ready-to-eat lunches, ready-to-cook dinners, regular fresh fish plus home delivery.
Carr is no stranger to the innovative food biz. A graduate of L’Academie de Cuisine, she most recently owned Thyme Out, a Rockville meal prep company where people assembled their own dinners, or bought them oven ready.
For this venture, Carr teamed up with Greg Casten, the founder of Profish, the longtime, premium Washington seafood wholesaler.
Go Fish! procures all its seafood from Profish, which also handles the home delivery aspect of the business.
Like other food truck operators, Carr has learned that it’s not an easy occupation, especially since your livelihood depends on a vehicle.
Her keys have gotten locked inside the truck, it's been towed, the battery died, the generator ran out of oil, the roof had a major leak, and she got kicked off Seven Locks Road by a policewoman. Most recently, two gallons of Maryland crab soup spilled onto the floor of the truck.
“Things happen and you just keep on going,” says Carr. “But the response [to the food] has been so positive.”
I caught up with Carr twice—in the early evening, when she was selling ready-to-cook fish dishes (fried catfish, salmon cakes) at a Bethesda school parking lot, and at lunch one day, when she was stationed on Bethesda Avenue.
Everything was thoughtfully prepared. I especially liked the lunchtime fish tacos—moist chunks of mahi mahi kept company in a soft flour tortilla with crunchy red cabbage slaw spiked with cilantro. And the crab cake, with lots of lump chunks and little filler—was one of the best I’ve had recently.
Through Profish, Go Fish! provides home delivery of a large variety of fresh seafood, with a $25 minimum (plus $5 delivery fee).
Fresh seafood can also be pre-ordered and picked up at Carr’s truck locations. For a list of fresh seafood items and a schedule of where the Go Fish! truck will be stationed, go to www.gofishdelivers.com. For more information, call 855-529-3474.
Carr has also initiated a program called Brain Food for Schools where she sells her prepared and fresh seafood in local private school parking lots. Some of the proceeds are donated to the school.
Today October 5, from 2:30 to 6 p.m., Carr will be selling lunch items and ready-to-cook dinner dishes such as pesto swordfish skewers, stuffed flounder and spice-rubbed salmon (as well as regular fresh fish) at the parking lot of St. Jane de Chantal Catholic School at 9525 Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda.
