The Fish Man of Hartford hated to go fishing when he was a boy.
“My father tortured me to bring me fishing,” says Hartford resident Maurice Pipkin, known as the Fish Man, during a recent interview. “Because my father would make me clean the fish. I would go, but I didn’t want to clean the fish when I was 9 or 10 years old. I like to fish, but I didn’t want to clean the fish.”
Not that it took long for Pipkin — who is locally famous for his energetic, punchy and often funny social-media commercials plugging his food truck, Just Fish — to overcome his distaste for fishing.
“I won the fishing derby when I was 11 years old at the Keeney Park pond,” Pipkin, 50, says. “I went there last year and did a commercial. It’s so funny, there I am doing a commercial about fish, and this is where I won the fishing derby.”
His daily commercials, which are typically a little over a minute long, always begin with what’s become his catch-phrase, “Hey, it’s me again, the Fish Man, giving you nothing but the best fish all around town …”
“We do a clap and we just rock and roll,” Pipkin says, adding that he typically just rattles off his daily specials and posts the videos to Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, after just one take (his gift for showmanship honed, perhaps, as a pastor in Bloomfield on Sundays).
Most of the time, he films himself in or around the truck. Other times, if he’s feeling puckish, he’ll film on top of the truck or tick off his daily specials while on a boat fishing. Once he filmed at a raucous house party.
He estimates he’s done about 400 or 500 commercials, which has earned him a loyal social-media following.
“Some days I would miss filming on, and the customers would come and they would say, ‘I didn’t see your commercial today. You don’t have specials?'” he says, laughing. “Everybody comes to me and says I saw you on Facebook or I saw you on TikTok or I saw you on Instagram. Or I heard from somebody else to come see you.”
The Fish Man provides more than just a laugh. His commercials give a daily jolt of joy to a city that has had, at best, an uneven effort to return to normalcy in downtown Hartford amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pipkin’s foray into the food business started with humble beginnings two years ago.
“We started in a tent in my yard in Blue Hills every Saturday,” Pipkin says.
He previously owned a used-car dealership, but he longed to start his own business.
“From back in the days, I was always frying fish. But I was doing it out of a pot and I was frying the fish.”
Eventually, Pipkin acquired a truck and a couple of employees and ran his business in his Blue Hills neighborhood. The city eventually had him relocate to his current spot at 20 Church St. due to zoning restrictions, he says.
The truck has been there for five weeks and is doing brisk business, Pipkin says, filling about 100 to 200 orders a day.
The menu includes a Just Fish basket (8 ounces of salmon, two whiting, two catfish, regular fries) for $21; lobster rolls (listed as market price); scallop, shrimp or salmon baskets for $14; a clam basket for $14; combinations (such as shrimp/scallops for $21, salmon/shrimp for $21; catfish/shrimp for $20); sandwiches (lobster grilled cheese for $15, salmon, catfish, porgy and whiting for $11 to $13).
Sides include seafood egg rolls ($10), hush puppies ($3), and seasoned fries, onion rings and sweet potato fries for $4.
Pipkin also has Give-Back Fridays, with various items for sale for $5.
“I pick each Friday to give back,” he says.
And while the food truck is named Just Fish, and the owner is known as the Fish Man, who declares he serves the best fish around, he also serves chicken wings.
“A lot of people when I first started, they wanted to support me, but they didn’t eat fish,” Pipkin says. “They’re allergic to seafood or whatever, so I have to have something for them.”
The food truck offers a variety of sauces for the fish and chicken, including garlic parmesan, mango habanero, buffalo, bourbon, General Tso’s, sweet jerk glaze and barbecue.
Pipkin gets his fish from City Fish in Wethersfield, a distributor in New York or he catches it himself.
Recently he went fishing for porgy in Niantic.
“I work the truck six days a week and I preach on Sunday,” Pipkin says. “So I’m working seven days. But God rested one day. So I’m going to take that day [Thursday] and fish. … A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work, it’s true.”
Still, a clever guerrilla advertising campaign and an owner’s endearing personality — Pipkin’s smile and positivity are unwavering — will only get a business, particularly a restaurant, so far.
But Pipkin’s food has drawn rave reviews.
Crystal Giddings, who was on her lunch break in downtown Hartford, says she has visited Just Fish at least every couple of days since the Blue Hills days.
“I am a shrimphead. I love the shrimp with the sweet chili sauce,” she said, adding she loves the truck’s current location. “Right here is excellent because they’re right here in downtown, where everybody is. I’m very glad they’re out here. They’ll get to make more money out here.”
Niecy Pierce was visiting Just Fish for the second time when she ordered scallops, shrimp, hush puppies and the lobster grilled-cheese sandwich.
“The food is amazing,” Pierce, a city bus driver, says, noting she ordered the shrimp and fish combination on her first visit. “The shrimp is so big and juicy.”
Pipkin has two employees — Dominic Cauley and Justice Conaway — as well as his wife, Takwana Berry-Pipkin, working the truck with him.
Business is going so well that Pipkin just purchased a bus that he plans on converting to handle catering events.
“People want me to come to their homes, their driveways, all kinds of stuff,” Pipkin says.
His only regret, so far, is he didn’t start his food-truck business sooner.
“I love doing it,” he says. “It’s going to be handed down to my children, and I’ll still be doing it. I love it that much. I don’t have to make a lot of money to be happy. I just want to be happy. That’s the key to success.”
Just Fish, at 20 Church St., takes payment via cash, credit cards and Cash App. It’s open six days a week: Monday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. He can be found on Facebook as justfish172, on Instagram as just_fish_truck and on TikTok as @fishman192. For more information, visit justfish172.com or call 860-890-9344.
Ted Glanzer can be reached at tglanzer@courant.com.
