Never Thought I'd be Slinging Fish: Pattie Plyler of Ocracoke Seafood Co. Retail Market

Reprinted from Tradewinds Magazine, 2021 by B. Garrity-Blake. Photo by B. Garrity-Blake

If you’ve stopped at Ocracoke Seafood Company’s fish house and seafood market in the heart of Ocracoke Village, chances are you’ve met Pattie Plyler. Sparkling blue eyes, fluffy white hair, and a smile you can somehow see through a Covid mask, Pattie darts around the shop hooking customers up with the specials of the day and educating them about North Carolina Seafood.

“These are speckled trout -- they’re fresh and delicious,” Pattie tells customers. “Have you seen our beautiful black sea bass?” she asks, sliding out a tray packed with fat filets. She flips one over to reveal a striking pattern of black and white scales.

“For people who are used to eating haddock, a northern fish, we suggest whiting,” Pattie explained. “Because like haddock, whiting is a mild white fish. We sell sea mullet and bluefish all day long – these are affordable fish for all folks. We make sure to let customers know about seasons and availability - red drum, for example, isn’t available until after May first.”

Ocracoke Seafood Company also offers fresh shrimp, crabs, oysters and clams, depending on the season. Mahi, tilefish, pompano, and sheepshead are best sellers. Just don’t ask for tilapia.

“A woman phoned and asked my husband Hardy for tilapia and he said, ‘We’ll never have tilapia in this market as long as we’re here!’” Patty laughed. “The woman asked why not? Boy did she get an earful! Tilapia is a farmed fish. We only carry fresh, wild caught fish.”

Ocracoke Island was in danger of losing its one and only fish house in 2006 after the property came up for sale. A group of commercial fishermen joined with local and off-island organizations and volunteers to form a non-profit and raise money to buy the fish house. To this day about 25 member-fishermen manage the business as a community association and invest profits back into the business.  

“Hardy had fished here for 30 years when the fish house effort came together,” Pattie recalled. “He stepped up to manage the wholesale business. When the retail side opened, he said to me, ‘You’d be perfect!’ I had spent the last 20 years or so working as a receptionist at different hotels on the island. Before that I was in the fashion business, working as a buyer for Macy’s in New York. Now I’m slinging fish instead of buying clothes!”

Pattie described what she loved about working at the seafood market. “You meet people and they become like family,” she said. “They come back year after year - we’ve created a bond.”

At first, Pattie Plyler shouldered seafood sales alone. Now she has a “right-hand and left-hand helper” in her assistant Elizabeth Dyer.

“Elizabeth has pitched right in,” Pattie said. Like many retirees to the island, Elizabeth came with a variety of skills she was willing to offer. “She’s the hospice nurse on the island. She also drives the Hyde County bus to take shoppers up the beach Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don’t know what I’d do without her at the seafood market!”

Elizabeth and many others were a big help bringing the market back to life after Hurricane Dorian devastated the island with a 7.4-foot storm surge on September 6, 2019. Ocracoke Seafood Company was among the 90% of island businesses that were nearly destroyed. The fish house, market, docks, pilings, concrete slab, and ice and refrigeration rooms were all damaged.

“Dorian in September and Covid the following Spring hit us like a double whammy,” Pattie reflected. “But we came through. We rebuilt the whole place with a lot of help from island businesses, organizations, customers off-island, people from up the beach, from Down East, and across the sound.”

Pattie and Hardy sent out hundreds of thank you notes. “We are so grateful,” she emphasized. “Ocracoke is really coming back.”

Most of the businesses on the island are now open or in the process of re-opening, and a new school is slated to be completed by fall of 2022. Many island homes are being raised.

“Before we were able to get back in business,” Pattie said, “people would stop me on the street and ask, ‘Will you open soon? I’m so fish hungry!’”

Several women are among the ranks of the Ocracoke Working Watermen’s Association, the community non-profit arm of Ocracoke Seafood Company.

“We have three women fishermen. Tree Ray fishes with Hardy – they call them the geriatric and the hippy chick crew!” Pattie laughed.  “She helps set up our retail case too.” Shannon Dunn O’Neal of Hatteras now fishes as part of the Working Waterman’s Association as she married Ocracoke native Eric O’Neal and now lives on the island.  

“A visitor told me that he watched a big boat come in, dock perfectly, and a beautiful woman stepped out. That was Shannon Dunn O’Neal.” Shannon fishes offshore for Spanish mackerel and sharks when she can, juggling work and two small children. “One day she wheeled a come-along filled with nets to her boat, and her little son was sitting right on top!” Pattie said.

 Education is about 75% of what we do,” Pattie noted. “It’s so important because people who live inland or work behind a desk have little knowledge about the fishing industry and I find that people are hungry to learn.”

Her husband Hardy heads up the island’s seafood branding effort, called Ocracoke Fresh. Under the umbrella of the non-profit organization NC Catch, Ocracoke Fresh joins Carteret Catch, Brunswick Catch, Outer Banks Catch, and Pamlico Catch as regionally specific efforts to educate consumers about the benefits of eating North Carolina Seafood.  

“I like answering questions from customers,” Pattie said. “What’s a pound net? Where does this or that fish come from? Who caught it? How do we prepare it? What’s a good recipe?” Her favorite “go-to” recipe that she offers was provided by the chef of Ocracoke’s Café Atlantic restaurant, recently closed when the owners retired. “Baked Parmesan Fish – people love it! The recipe calls for flounder, but it works for sheepshead, tilefish, and red drum.”

Pattie and Hardy Plyler have no plans to retire soon, and joke that they’ll be working at Ocracoke Seafood Company from rocking chairs one day.

“We believe in this place,” Pattie reflected. “It’s more than the seafood – it’s the traditions and heritage of a fishing community. So many coastal towns are seeing condos built because of the price of waterfront property. We can’t let that happen. Visitors love to see the boats coming in, the trucks getting loaded, everything getting iced down – our fish house is an institution.”

 Cafe' Atlantic's Baked Parmesan Flounder via Ocracoke Seafood Company

·                4 flounder fish filets

·                2 cups freshly shredded parmesan cheese

·                1/4 cup melted butter

·                3/4 cup mayonnaise

·                3/4 cup green onions, sliced and minced

·                4 tsp. minced garlic

·                1 tsp. hot sauce

·                1-2 tsp. Old Bay seasoning

Mix all ingredients (EXCEPT the Old Bay seasoning) in a large bowl until thoroughly combined. Place fish filets in a baking dish and spread cheese mixture over fish before baking. Sprinkle Old Bay seasoning on top of cheese mixture. Bake in a 425 degree oven until fish is cooked through. Time will depend on thickness of the filet, but will take about 12 minutes for filets 3/4" thick.