2020 Best of the Beat – Forsyth County Edition: Forsyth Seafood Market

FIRST PLACE: Best Seafood

Serving the Winston-Salem community for more than 35 years, Forsyth Seafood Market & Café is a one-stop shop for fresh seafood and made-to-order café items. This Black-owned, woman-owned business is helmed by Virginia Hardesty and her daughter, Ashley Hardesty Armstrong, co-owner and marketing coordinator. There’s no doubting why the duality of this restaurant and retail grocer has the best seafood in town. The café, which serves fried fish, plus steamed and broiled offerings and seasonal dishes such as catfish stew and gumbo, is how many are introduced to the city’s premiere fishmonger. Regulars know that they’re welcome to pick a fish from the market side for the kitchen next door to cook up right then and there. Most of what Forsyth Seafood sells is wild caught off the coasts of NC and Va., with trucks coming in multiple times a week to provide the most local, freshest fish, mollusks, bivalves and crustaceans. Over the past three years, the outfit has acquired a food truck, a partnership with Cobblestone Farmers Market and now sells merchandise and clothing swag from its website. (forsythseafood.com)

— NMK