A fishy business in Madison Heights

By Liz Barry

Published: September 3, 2008

As a boy, Bennie Dryden spent his summers sailing the Chesapeake Bay on his father’s fishing boat. They harvested fish, clams, oysters, crabs — the whole works.

Fishing was in his blood.

- WHAT: Bennie’s Seafood
- WHERE: 4133 B.S. Amherst Highway, Madison Heights
- HOURS: Vary by season. Summer hours are Wednesday to Friday 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturday 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- INFO: Call (434) 847-4998

At 17, Dryden bought his own boat — a 32-footer — and tried to make it on his own. He worked six days a week, from dawn to dusk.

Bound to the forces of Mother Nature, his catch (and luck) would rise and fall like the tides. It was hard work, but good work. There was no boss, no time clock, just man and sea.

But it wasn’t long before times got tough.

“It got to the point where you couldn’t catch enough seafood to pay your bills,” Dryden recalls.

In 1975, just three years after buying his boat, Dryden gave up fishing and moved from his hometown of Poquoson to Concord to be closer to his wife’s family. Here, Bennie and Janet Dryden put down roots and started a family.

Even in Concord, Dryden stayed connected to the water. In 1984, he began selling seafood out of his truck, and by 1989, he had set up shop at the city market. Bennie’s Seafood has been a Lynchburg area fixture ever since.

Today, Bennie’s Seafood calls Madison Heights home. Dryden moved here in 2005 after the rent at his Twelfth Street location got too high.

It’s easy to overlook Bennie’s amid the loud billboards and warehouse stores along Amherst Highway. The shop stands on the edge of a vast parking lot, between Johnny’s Hot Dogs & BBQ and Anderson’s Country Market. A hand-painted sign and 3-foot-tall lighthouse statue mark the spot.

Inside, the décor is nautical. A large glass display case holds beds of pink, white and silver fish on ice. The air smells unmistakably of seafood.

Dryden’s wife Janet is on the front lines of the operation. She takes phone orders and greets the customer. Dryden is the behind-the-scenes man, prepping the fish for sale or driving to the coast for a new load.

Weekly trips to the coast are a staple of the business. Most of Dryden’s fish have a three-day shelf life.

“You either sell it or you smell it,” Dryden says.

Dryden is a regular in Hampton and Norfolk, often buying seafood directly off the boat. Sometimes he drives as far as New Orleans and the Delaware shore. The trips to the coast are a double-edged sword. While Dryden loves seeing his buddies on the coast, he says the hefty price of gas and long hours on the road can be draining.

Business has been slower in recent months, with rising gas and food prices putting a strain on family budgets, Dryden says. His weekly trips to the shore have gotten pricier, too.

But Dryden tries to keep prices down and attract new customers with weekly sales. Plus, he says he has a strong base of regulars, who have followed his business from location to location over the years.

Dryden is a seafood lover himself; he’s been eating it for as long as he can remember. One of his favorite dishes is fish baked with carrots, onions and potatoes, like a roast. The beach is also his favorite vacation spot with his wife. But there still are times when Dryden misses the open water.

“If I could’ve made a living at it, I’d be doing it right now,” he says.