He’s been selling fish to landlocked Wichita for 50 years. Now, he’s sick and struggling
For decades, he’s been known as the man who brought fish to landlocked Wichita.
But now, Larry Towns — the owner of Wichita Fish Co. at 1601 W. Douglas in Wichita and Haysville Fish Co. at 7301 S. Broadway in Haysville — is sick, and his family is trying to keep the businesses he started going. His daughter has even started a Go Fund Me campaign for her parents that has so far raised just over $2,000.
“Our goal is to keep the restaurants going,” said Neeley Towns, Larry’s youngest of 10 children. “That’s my goal, too. I’m going to do what I can.”
Towns, 75, has been in and out of the hospital lately, his daughter said. He’s suffering from congestive heart failure and has had fluid around his heart and in his lungs.
And that’s only his latest health trouble, she said. Two years ago, he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer that had reached his bones and hips. Since then, he’s had a hip replacement, a quadruple bypass and an emergency appendectomy.
And yet, Neeley said, she and her mother, Judy, have had a hard time getting Larry to stay home. He’s too worried about work to take care of his health.
“He can’t move around much, but he sits up there and takes orders,” she said. “He likes to b.s. with his customers.”
Neeley said her mother, Judy, 74, has been working 80 hour weeks to try to keep the businesses afloat. One of the family’s biggest problems is that since Larry has been ill, he hasn’t been able to keep up with his wholesale business, which helps support the family and the restaurants.
In the meantime, his businesses have gotten behind on taxes, Neeley said.
Doctors have told the family that Larry’s heart is working at only 20 percent of its full function and that it’s not going to improve.
“But we still have hope,” Neeley said.
Larry Towns, who has worked as a seafood wholesaler in Wichita for almost 50 years, teamed up with a partner and took over the Wichita Fish Co., a fish retailer on West Douglas, in 1997. They kept the retail side of the business but expanded it to be mainly a restaurant.
In 2010, he opened the Haysville restaurant.
The two fish restaurants are known for their fried catfish but also sell fried pollock, tilapia filets, popcorn shrimp. breaded scallops, battered clams and fried oysters. There are also non-fried options, like ahi tuna, halibut, salmon, bass and mahi mahi.
This story was originally published January 8, 2020 at 5:01 AM with the headline "He’s been selling fish to landlocked Wichita for 50 years. Now, he’s sick and struggling."
.jpg)