Swanson's Fish Market

What happened after

45-year-old fish market closed permanently around January 1, 2018 after owner Gary Swanson's family decided to shut down.

Closure date on record: 2018-01

What happened on the show

Swanson's Fish Market had been gutted, twice, by fire, one blaze destroying its historic store building and another its warehouse, and by the time Marcus arrived the place was struggling. He found the shop itself unappealing, though customers raved about the prepared foods, especially a fish soup that sold out in small batches. His offer was unusual, $1 million for the building and a zero percent stake in the company, with the owners keeping an option to buy it back. He reorganized the store to feature high margin fish and lean into the prepared foods, and when the building's co tenant cafe could not pay its overdue rent, he folded it into Swanson's to expand food production. But he grew increasingly critical of the owners' lavish lifestyle, a BMW, a boat, a house renovation, set against a failing business. The break came when he dug into the property records and discovered that foreclosure proceedings had begun before he ever showed up. Furious at the dishonesty, he stormed out.

After the cameras left

Swanson's Fish Market is gone. The 45 year old fish market, on Black Rock Turnpike in Fairfield, shut down for good at the start of 2018, when the Swanson family chose to close the doors. Local outlets including the Connecticut Post and Westfair covered the closure, making this one of the more cleanly documented endings in the show's run. The fires and the debt the episode laid bare proved too much to outrun. Confirmed closed as of January 2018, high confidence.