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The Beacon Hill Shell Station has excellent fried foods.

The Beacon Hill Shell Station has excellent fried foods. Anthony Keo


It appears the kids have discovered the Beacon Hill Shell Station and it’s blowing up on TikTok. Welcome, Gen Z. Here’s Mudede’s take on the station’s catfish from last April. —Eds. Note


Spring was here. The sun was shining and people were out. I decided to take a walk that would begin at the corner of South Columbian Way and Beacon Avenue South, and end at Sixth Avenue South and South King Street, the location of Fort St. George, a bar. A drink or two or three (most likely) would provide the walk with a hard goal. I can’t just walk for the sake of walking, which is why a treadmill is, in my mind, doubly monstrous: You’re going nowhere with no goal in mind.

A long walk also cannot happen without a little treat along the way. Sometimes it is two of the supremely rich and brittle spring rolls at Fou Lee Market; other times, a few slices of barbecue pork at the deli in the Red Apple. For this walk, I decided it would be a piece of fried catfish at the Beacon Hill Shell Station.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...