Captain White Seafood City, a historic seafood market at D.C.’s southwest waterfront, will be leaving its decades-old outpost sometime after Thanksgiving, according to management.

Confusion swirled Thursday afternoon after local blog Popville shared images of a Captain White Seafood City barge seemingly floating away from its home on Maine Avenue. But no: The market didn’t just go AWOL, setting adrift down the Washington Channel.

According to general manager Pete White, Captain White will be leaving The Wharf shortly after Thanksgiving, and potentially relocating elsewhere. The barge spotted on the water Thursday was one of White’s two operating barges to leave The Wharf — the market will continue running out of one remaining barge through Thanksgiving. (The barges were actually towed by boat, according to Washingtonian.)

“We really don’t want to leave but it wasn’t really our choice,” White said. “You’d have to ask the developer next door that question.”

DC's fish market looking very different today without @CaptainWhites pic.twitter.com/ISnzISAXoJ

— Jason Kopp 🌊 (@KoppDC) November 4, 2021

According to The Wharf’s developer, Hoffman-Madison Waterfront, Captain White informed the company that they would be leaving the fish market, following a court ruling earlier this year that concluded a long legal saga over lease agreements between the market owners and The Wharf’s developers.

“The operators of Captain White’s Seafood have informed us that they have decided to leave the Municipal Fish Market following a US District Court ruling earlier this year in a case the Whites filed against the District of Columbia and Hoffman-Madison Waterfront affiliates,” reads the statement. “Hoffman-Madison Waterfront remains committed to preserving the legacy and vibrancy of the Municipal Fish Market that serves as a true gathering place for D.C. and will continue to carry on the rich tradition of small and local vendors selling fresh and affordable seafood at The Wharf for years to come.”

Captain White Seafood City is a vendor in the Wharf’s Municipal Fish Market, the oldest open-air fish market in the United States, operating since the early 1800s. In a Facebook post, representatives for Captain White say the fishmonger has been open for more than 50 years, many of them under the ownership of brothers Billy Ray and Sunny White. The business became an anchor of the popular fish market, and grew to a network of three fish purveyors owned by the family. (Billy Ray was killed in a car crash last year; the family still operates the market.)

In the summer of 2015, Captain White’s owners sought an injunction against and sued the city and Hoffman-Madison, alleging that they were trying to illegally evict the White’s fish markets. (In addition to Captain White, they also operated Salt Water Seafood and The Wharf, unrelated to the name of the development project.) D.C. acted as the original landlord of the market, until Hoffman-Madison assumed control of the market’s lease in 2014. The suit argued that developers disrupted operations by blocking entrances and parking at their market — allegedly an attempt to push the markets out of business, thus making way for future development.

Meanwhile, Hoffman-Madison’s CEO claimed, at the time, that the company had made “every effort” to work with the market owners, but that they had refused to sign a lease or pay rent. For years, the company stated their commitment to working with and preserving the decades-old markets as the waterfront developed into a multi-use hub of restaurants, shops, and luxury apartments. The lawsuit divided seafood businesses on the southwest waterfront, pitting Captain White against other longtime, family-owned markets like Jessie Taylor Seafood and Virgo Fish Cleaning House, who sided with Hoffman-Madison’s claims that the developer has worked with fish market owners, not against them.

Years of legal back and forth followed, until the U.S. District Court for D.C. issued a ruling in March 2021, concluding that the leases for Captain White and Salt Water Seafood were invalid, and that all three businesses are considered month-to-month tenants.

Captain White’s owners did not respond to requests for comment.

For longtime visitors to the Municipal Fish Market, Captain White has been a destination for fresh and fried shrimp, oysters, crabs, and fish, as well as hush puppies, bisques, and seafood seasonings.

“This is a D.C. landmark,” one passerby told WJLA this morning outside the market. “I [used to] look forward to my grandparents bringing me down here for bushels of crabs.”

In a Facebook post this morning, Captain White says they’ll be sharing the new D.C.-area location for the market “soon.”

“The Captain White Family and Crew cannot begin to put into words how grateful and thankful we are for your loyalty, dedication and support through the years,” they wrote. “Through the years of construction and detours to the new pay to shop parking and the numerous tickets you all have gotten just to get a 1/2 bushel or dozen crabs. THANK YOU for still coming.”

Martin Austermuhle contributed reporting.