Texas man goes to grocery store. Then he sees something disturbing in the fish market: ‘Buy one, get one free’

A short TikTok shared by D Estrada III (@destrada210956), filmed at a San Antonio H-E-B seafood counter, pans across the crushed ice to a large salmon posed mid-meal—a whole catfish clamped in its open mouth.

As of this writing, the content creator's post has more than 66,000 views.

H-E-B's Displayed Fish

D Estrada III films the large salmon arched over ice, with a catfish jutting from its jaws. The fishmonger, it seems, decided to be an artist. The salmon is above H-E-B's blue “Responsibly Raised” placard and a run of yellow sale tags.

The poster places it at the store off Southwest Military Drive and Zarzamora, which is on the city's South Side.

‘That Monkfish is Scary!'

The comment section turned into a gallery of people showing off their local H-E-B or grocery store fish display.

“Haha our seafood manager does that with the ugly flat lookin fish,” said one commenter.

Another person joked, “Doesn't look responsibly raised to me.” One person wrote, “Is it a buy one get one deal?”

One person posted a photo of a monkfish. “Ma'am this is the seafood department, not Spirit Halloween! lol that monkfish is scary!” the poster quipped.

Another person added, “I hope my store never gets a monkfish cause that ish is what nightmares are made of.”

A commenter noted that H-E-B had become a little stale when it came to other departments' creativity. “Why do y'all get to have fun?” they said. “They've taken away anything interesting or fun bakery could do.”

A woman seemed afraid to go by the fish. “I'm not made to go past the fish aisle because I would have yelled out loud and caused a scene,” she said. “Ever since I was little … We had to avoid the lobsters because even as a [6-year-old], I was against their treatment. I'll be double sure to not go by the fish … (That is cool though).”

The poster understood and replied: “Definitely don't want to unlock any childhood trauma in the seafood section lol. I'm glad you thought it was cool though! I honestly had to do a double take when I saw it.”

The Counter as Theater

Grocers have always known a fish case is half stage.

Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market built a business model on it decades ago, and the TikTok era only proved the point: The market's single most-watched video isn't one of its famous fish tosses. Instead, a video of co-owner Ryan Reese calmly breaking down a whole salmon has passed 9 million views.

Diego Moreno, who runs the market's social accounts, told KNKX the draw is the work itself, not the gimmick—the craft behind the counter, he says, is “an art.”

Back in 2018, Kuwaiti authorities shut down a fish shop after a customer's video caught googly eyes peeling off the stock, glued on to make tired fish appear as fresh.

Nearby petty rival fishmongers advertised their own catch without the cosmetics. A salmon posed with a catfish in its mouth sits at the harmless end of the same reflex. Dress the ice, stop the scroll, move the fish.

@destrada210956

Subplot News reached out to D Estrada III via TikTok comment and message, and to H-E-B via email.

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