Something Fishy in Floyd

The following was published in The Floyd Press on September 6, 2007 with the title “They Specialize in the Catch of the Day.”

I’ve nicknamed them the Indigo Girls, after the female singing duo from Atlanta. But this Floyd County duo goes by the name of Indigo Farms. Indigo Farms owners, Teresa Nester and Susan Handy, don’t sing. They don’t make CD’s. They sell fish.

From the back of their white refrigerated truck, they sell everything from Artic Char to Wahoo; from salmon, scallops, and snapper to catfish, crabmeat, and cod. But it all started with shrimp.

On a warm day in late August in front of the Harvest Moon Food Store, a popular stop on their fish truck route, I learned the history of Indigo Farms. What began with recreational trips to the North Carolina coast to visit Teresa’s sister became Indigo Farms in 1993 when Teresa and Susan began supplying fresh seafood to the Pine Tavern Restaurant, back when Michael Gucciardo was the chef.

Now they make weekly treks to the coast, bringing back seafood for restaurants from the Château Morrisette to those in Mountain Lake and a few in Roanoke. They also sell to the public. Besides the Harvest Moon and other Floyd locations, they make retails stops in Riner and Blacksburg. Their schedule is outlined in detail on their website, where they also share seafood recipes and photos of their trips, complete with ocean sound effects.

As the Pine Tavern began incorporating fresh seafood into their menu and receiving positive feedback for it, others started making requests, Susan, the former Floyd recreational department director explained.

“In the beginning it was only shrimp. Now we’re into octopus and squid,” Teresa joked. The best part of running their own business has been the people they come in contact with, she told me.

“We’ve become part of their lives and they’ve become part of ours. We’ve watched their kids grow up,” remarked Teresa, who was previously employed as a technical writer at the Radford Arsenal.

“Even the customers get to know one another,” I responded. “I’ve met some new people and caught up with old friends while standing in line waiting for fish. I’ve been in a line of as many as four people. Do you ever get lines longer than that?” I asked.

Teresa’s answer surprised me. “Oh, at least twenty and we’ve probably served as many as two hundred in Blacksburg in one stop.”

“Blacksburg people love fish!” she said.

Their Blacksburg connection started when a woman asked them to make her house one of the stops on their route. “If you come, I’ll tell my friends,” the woman told Susan.

Susan and Teresa know many of their customers by name and some are on nickname basis, like “Salmon Man,” who I met soon after Susan mentioned his name when he pulled up for his weekly purchase of salmon. Earlier, a customer shared details of her recent fishing vacation; another one remarked that she started buying fish from of the back of the Indigo Farms’ truck when her now teenager was a baby in diapers.

In the winter the women wear insulated jumpsuits to keep warm as they work. In the summer they carry extra ice and pack it in with customer orders.

“I’m like the family butcher,” Teresa said, referring to the fact that she knows what their regular customers like. Some order ahead. Others mosey over to the truck and check out the list on the Indigo Farms dry erase board before making their menu decisions.

It was late in the afternoon on Saturday, so many of their most popular offerings had sold out, as evidenced by their names being crossed out on the board. The blue flag on top of their truck flapped in the breeze as I settled on a pound of catfish for my order. I snapped a photo of Susan in her Indigo Farms blue T-shirt talking to “Salmon Man,” as Teresa bagged up my fresh fish. She packed it with extra ice.

Post Notes: Visit www.indigofarmsseafood.com for more information. This entry was originally posted on looseleafnotes.com on September 11, 2007.