New fish market offers fresh seafood selection

Jesse Smith, left, sells fish to Willie Pearl Mitchell at the Ocala Catch Of The Day Fish Market in the Ocala Center shopping center on East Silver Springs Boulevard in Ocala, Fla. on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021. Smith’s wife, Samar Ibrahim, owns the fish market store. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2021.

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Posted September 17, 2021 | By Rosemarie Dowell
Special to the Gazette

Something fishy has been going on at the Ocala Center shopping center the past few months, but for good reason.

The Ocala Catch of the Day Fish Market opened there in May offering a wide variety of fresh-caught fish and seafood including grouper, red snapper, mullet, tuna, sea bass, shrimp, scallops, oysters, crab legs and catfish, said owner Samar Ibrahim of Ocala.

“The red snapper is a popular item,” she said. “We sell a lot of it.”

Besides fish and seafood, customers can also find ingredients needed to prepare their favorite dishes, said Ibrahim, a native of Jordan who moved to the United States more than 35 years ago.

“Customers can come in and get their fish and whatever else they need to cook it,” she said. “We’ve got rice, spices, flour, olive oil and more.”

“We do special orders for customers too,” said Ibrahim. “If we don’t have what they want, we’ll get it for them.”

Ibrahim said she decided to open the fish market after visiting others in the area and leaving empty-handed – and unimpressed.

“We are fish lovers and had access to great fish markets when we lived in South Florida, but we could never find good quality fish here,” she said. “It was disappointing. That’s when we decided to open our own fish market.”

The process was arduous and took months to complete, she said. When the market was finally given the go-ahead to open, Florida’s off season was just beginning and the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to pick up steam again.

“It took a long time to get our license and in the beginning it was hard, especially in June and July,” said Ibrahim. “Things are picking up now, but we are still trying to make it.”

Ibrahim her family made the move to Ocala nine years ago to raise their son.

“I wanted my son to have a better life,” she said. “I wanted to raise him in a nice area with good schools.”

Located at 1745 E. Silver Springs Blvd., Ocala Catch of the Day is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.