Jiggs -n- Reels Seafood Market

A seafood market with a catch: Jiggs -n- Reels

Jiggs -n- Reels Seafood Market is 800 km from the Atlantic, but has the freshest fish around. How do they do it? Direct flights to the Maritimes to bring it straight from the source - what a hook!

Gina Duff-Cordon, owner and operator of Jiggs -n- Reels in downtown Paris, Ontario.

Before the fresh seafood at Jiggs -n- Reels in downtown Paris makes it to the coolers – and your dinner table – it goes on a journey.

This journey starts in the Atlantic - of course - where it’s trawled into nets, deep below the ocean surface, and hoisted into the catch basins of fishing boats. Once full, they dock at a picturesque harbour somewhere in Newfoundland to unload. Here, it’s sold to brokers, friends of shop owner and Newfoundlander, Gina Duff-Cordon. Only the best is picked for Gina.

The fresh fish is then thrown on ice and trucked to the airport in St. Johns, where it’s loaded onto a red and white Boeing 767 operated by cargo airline Cargojet and piloted by Gina’s husband Brad Cordon.

Brad flies the seafood - and the rest of the flight’s contents - along the 2000-kilometer route to Hamilton, Ontario in the late hours of the night.

The plane lands at John C. Munro airport at dawn, where Gina is waiting. She’ll take the payload, which often weighs hundreds of pounds, through the last leg of the trip to 19 Broadway Street West in Paris, where it’s unloaded, prepared and displayed just in time for the shop’s 10:00 AM opening.

While the seafood is sometimes sourced from Nova Scotia, rather than Newfoundland, and Brad isn’t always the one in the cockpit, this is roughly the twice (sometimes thrice) weekly routine of the Cordons, the Paris couple who’ve owned and operated Jiggs -n- Reels since 2017.

Jiggs -n- Reels sells all kinds of fresh seafood, and not just the Maritime catches. But also, Great Lakes varieties, homemade bisques and chowders (all made in-store) and more.

Brad Cordon, Gina’s husband and a pilot for Cargojet, the cargo airline which transports the market’s seafood from the Maritimes to Ontario.

According to Gina, the system came before the store. It was only when the Cordons discovered they could bring fresh seafood this far inland and keep that seafood fresh, that they set out to start their business.

Gina moved to Ontario from Newfoundland in 2010 and settled down with her husband, a born-and-raised Parisian. When she arrived, she didn’t realize just how much she’d miss being able to buy fresh seafood.

“I took for granted that I lived next to the ocean and I could get fresh fish every day,” she said.

Not long after the move, Gina had bought fish from a local grocery store to make Brad his favourite Cod au Gratin, but was surprised how less fresh the fish tasted, just being a few days older.

She phoned her Mom - who still lives in the small community of Topsail where Gina is from – and asked if she could have fish sent on one of Brad’s flights.

When it arrived, she stuffed and barbecued a salmon and held a dinner party for Brad’s family.

 “Where did you get this fish?” asked one of the dinner guests. “It’s so fresh!”

After receiving more rave reviews of the meal from Brad’s relatives, someone suggested she could turn this into a business – “you can’t get anything like this around here,” they said.

So that’s exactly what the Cordons set out to do.

Their store first opened in a stall at The Paris Wincey Mills Co., where it remained until 2021 when they moved into the standalone location on William Street.

The move didn’t just bring more space; it was also an opportunity for Gina to expand into a new market: Newfoundland products and snacks that aren’t available on the mainland.

Gina says people come from a long way to check out these products – mostly those who, like her, are Newfoundlanders away from home.

Emily Cordon, Gina’s niece and a seasonal employee at Jiggs -n- Reels.

“They’ll drive from far to get that stuff,” she said.

And for those who aren’t from “The Rock,” Gina is happy to share the culture of her home province.

“Being an East-coaster, I love talking to people,” she said.

“I enjoy sharing my heritage with people, and I enjoy how much they enjoy the food and these products.”

Jiggs -n- Reels Seafood Market is located at 19 Broadway Street West in downtown Paris. Keep up with what’s fresh by following them on Instagram or Facebook @jiggsnreels17