The Market Basket a local seafood staple

Published 12:00 pm Monday, February 28, 2022

The Market Basket and its fresh seafood have been a Milledgeville staple since the restaurant opened in August 2003.

Owner Natacha Ansley is a Milledgeville native and graduate of Baldwin High School and Georgia Military College. She spent 17 years in the nursing field before retiring to help care for her sick mother, who was stricken with cancer. Despite not knowing much about the seafood industry, she purchased The Market Basket in 2003 and has since become an entrepreneur. Not only does she own The Market Basket, located at 370 Allen Memorial Drive SW in Milledgeville, but Ansley also has a beauty and barbershop.

She said she believes that becoming an entrepreneur is one of the many ways that God has used her to fulfill her purpose of being a resource for her community.

At The Market Basket, customers can find what Ansley said is the freshest seafood in Milledgeville and Baldwin County. She ensures that everything stays fresh by keeping track of what comes in, what is popular with customers, and by not holding products or freezing them from week to week. On the seafood to-go menu, which will soon make its return in the summer after taking a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, customers will find plenty of seafood at reasonable prices, including the very popular fried mullet, fresh shrimp and catfish.

The Market Basket, as one might expect, sells these and other types of seafood from its regular inventory, in addition to having its to-go menu.

The business has experienced tremendous support from the community, with Ansley becoming the first African American female in Baldwin County to win Small Business of the Year honors in 2015-16. That kind of recognition and the support mean a great deal to her, she said.

Not only has her community been supportive of The Market Basket, but Ansley has also been able to use her business as a way to give back. Ansley converted the area that was originally intended to be her office into a food bank for the nonprofit Georgia Cancer Support.

What Ansley enjoys most about running The Market Basket alongside her husband, Ray, and her employees are without a doubt the people.

“I am a people person. I just love to see the people come in,” she said, comparing the atmosphere to a family reunion where she sees people that she knows and doesn’t know, and sometimes there will be people that haven’t seen each other in years that randomly meet up while waiting in line. Moments like that, Ansley explained, really make her feel good. She is also quick to add that she would not be able to fulfill her purpose without her husband by her side.

The reason that she ultimately does what she does is that it’s something different.

“It’s fresh seafood and you don’t find seafood as fresh as mine in Milledgeville/Baldwin County or in surrounding counties,” Ansley affirmed.

“When customers come in, they’re greeted with a smile. My husband and I, along with my employees, we have positive energy,” she said. “That really stands out, the way that we carry ourselves with The Market Basket and everything. So, in a way, we are the billboard for The Market Basket.”