(soft guitar music)
(people chattering)
- [Stephen Criswell] Fish camps are distinct.
So, they're small, family friendly restaurants,
nothing fancy about them, very simple decor.
They cater to a largely blue collar clientele.
They're marked by having both saltwater
and seafood offerings, and then the trinity
of hushpuppies, french fries, and coleslaw.
The fish camps were a place where you could go
and feed your whole family and not blow your whole paycheck.
And the portions were always generous.
First and foremost, it's good.
It's good food, I mean, nothin' beats
a hushpuppy fresh out of the grease.
But it's tied to the textile mills that were so important
to the South, they were vital to these communities,
and they shaped the culture of the region,
the food at the fish camp has a direct relationship
to the mill workers, and what they wanted,
and what they ate, and what they were used to.
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The first fish camps were really just spots on the
banks of the river, the Catawba River, in this case.
Mill workers would, on their days off, would go fishing.
A number of entrepreneurs would set up little camps
on the banks where they would clean your fish and fry
it for you, and make hushpuppies and french fries
for you to have with it, and you'd sit out
and have a little picnic.
One of the earliest ones in Gaston County, North Carolina
was run by a fellow named Luther Lineberger
who worked for the textile mill
in Cramerton, North Carolina.
Luther was known around the mill to be a really good cook,
and he would be out on the bank some days,
fryin' fish for other mill workers who were out fishing.
That was so successful that Luther decided to open
his own spot, and in 1948, he opened Lineberger's
Fish Camp a little ways off from the banks of the river.
So, Luther was a mill worker, the folks fishing
in the fishing banks were mill workers,
and the clientele of the fish camps tended
to be textile mill workers.
Because of that connection, some traditions came up.
The culture of the community becomes
intertwined with the mills.
I don't wanna romanticize it, it was painful, unpleasant,
hard, loud work, but there was a community,
a camaraderie, and working at the mill meant
that you belonged to a community,
that you belonged to a family.
I, myself, I grew up in Gaston County,
North Carolina, and my dad worked for
the textile mills, and the textile mills
tended to pay on Thursdays, and so the fish camps
were usually open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
I remember many Thursday nights, we would
go to Stowe's Fish Camp, because Dad got paid,
and this was our outing, and so we'd go out to Stowe's,
and we'd go out to eat, and I'm the smallest
member of my family, so it was quite a feast
that we would have.
So, you're gonna order your entree,
and it's gonna be whole or half order, right,
so whole order is huge, and half order is still pretty big.
You have a choice of filet of flounder
or whole flounder, salt and pepper catfish,
perch, I'm not even sure what a perch is.
You could get shrimp, this is all fried.
A big, giant basket of french fries.
Hush puppies, and cole slaw, and sweet tea,
of course, with every meal.
Yeah, and that was pretty much it.
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When the mills were at their height,
the fish camps were at their height.
At one point, if you looked at maybe a five mile radius,
there'd be at least half a dozen or more,
and if you go out a little further, probably another dozen.
And so, when the mills started dying off,
partly because of outsourcing, a lot of folks
in the area suffered as these mills picked up and left.
Curiously, the decline of the mills has sort of paralleled
the decline of the fish camps as well, the number
of fish camps has dwindled compared to what it was,
say, 20, 30 years ago.
It has created a generational split.
That said, they're there still, and, you know,
they're serving the same items that they always did.
Twin Tops is pretty much a typical fish camp.
What you see there is the kinda thing you would see
or would have seen across the street and around the corner.
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When you talk to folks about their memories,
goin' as a family to the fish camp, those are warm memories,
they're lovely memories for a lot of people.
Home, family, food, feasting, just that whole experience.
You know, when we break bread together,
we come together, and this is a place where
a lot of small town blue collar Southerners
came together, formed their communities,
they formed their families, they checked up
on each other, they got the latest gossip,
but also shared their latest news, and it was a place
for the community, and for building a community,
and building a community focused around really good food.
Like much of history, it's worth saving,
it's worth honoring, it's worth remembering.
(upbeat guitar music)
- [Narrator] The name is Reckoning's Cafe,
to feed the working man.
We went over the menu before we opened,
okay, okay, this is good, this is good, now we...
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