Robert Flores first fell in love with Fred’s Fish Fry back in high school when he used to hit the pokey little takeout joint that’s still afloat in a sea of auto parts scrapyards on Somerset Road.

Decades later, the 65-year-old still heeds the sweet siren call of Fred’s rectangular fish fillets, round shrimp pieces and their famous tartar sauce. Now, at least once a week, he and his wife hit the Fred’s at 6323 Old Pearsall Road, a downright palatial location in comparison to what will always be his seafood pride of the South Side.

“Check this out. So when I was in the military, I was gone for 14 years,” Flores said. “Where do you think the first place I went to when I came back? No lie, Fred’s Fish.”

The South and West Side institution is still dishing out the same fish and chips after more than 50 years and despite the persistent rumor that the chain is a drug front or some other criminal cover-up to explain its apparent lack of customers or cars in the parking lot. That rumor has circulated for decades and now is the basis for several memes on social media.

Why don’t you see cars in the lot? Most customers get takeout, and several locations don’t even have a dining room.

That takeout now is the stuff of San Antonio legend, a tradition carried out for generations one greasy, three-piece shrimp and fish platter-filled box at a time.

Take the Fred’s at 603 N. Zarzamora Street. In just one late afternoon hour, the West Side location saw multiple demographic groups dive in for an order of fried seafood with a heaping side of memories to-go.

Delia Gonzales, a 32-year-old mom with her 6-year-old son, proudly declared she swings by every other day and has loved the shrimp, onion rings and just about anything else at Fred’s since she was 17. Ditto Jose Gutierrez, 65, retired from the Army and the Marines who’s been a Fred’s fan through high school, Vietnam and two trips around the world.

Then there was Beatrice Perez, a 70-year-old grandmother with her 9-year-old grandson. She professed a similar love for Fred’s three-piece fish order, a love that goes back to her 20s.

“It’s a family tradition,” Gutierrez said. “ ‘Hey, let’s go to Fred’s.’ ”

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What started in 1963 with a single fish fry on the 4800 block of Roosevelt Avenue has quietly spawned to a school of 16 Alamo City locations, more than the number of area Long John Silver’s and Sea Island Shrimp House locations combined.

Most Fred’s takeout meals come in a basic 5- by 7-inch box with a Fred’s logo. The seafood platters — ranging from $10.05 for two fried pieces each of shrimp, oysters and white fish to $47.04 for a dozen pieces each of shrimp and fish — include tartar sauce, ketchup and bread. Prices aside, it’s been the same since pretty much the beginning.

The distinctive Fred’s sign — a gray fish leaping out of green water — has been the same since the early 1970s. And the menu still sports photos and prices of Fred’s signature fish and shrimp, still battered and breaded by the same company the Castellanos refuse to name but who they say refuses to work with anyone else.

Even the name behind the business remains relatively unchanged. The seafood legacy of late founding father Alfred Castellano Sr. and his son Alfred Castellano Jr. now carries on with Alfred Castellano III and his sister Teresa Castellano.

“I’ve got two helpers here. Well, two bosses now,” said Castellano Jr., 75. “I’m semi-retired.”

Seated in a conference room at the Fred’s main office and processing plant, just down the road from that location on Somerset, the Castellanos served up the kind of secrets to success that sound about as square as their fish fillets: Avoid the middleman, don’t get into debt and never fix what isn’t broken. The Castellanos have stuck by that simple and consistent recipe since Castellano Sr. died in 1971.

The Castellanos say they save money by buying seafood directly from fisheries and processing and distributing it themselves. They also buy and build on the property of every Fred’s location, which they own instead of lease.

And those locations, which already bear a small footprint, bear an equally small staff. The busier Fred’s restaurants may have up to four employees at a time, Castellano III said, while the tinier walk-ups have spells where they get along just fine with a single staffer.

“So when people question a lot, we’re just not splurging on stuff we don’t need,” said Castellano III, who added that such misconceptions about Fred’s are a big reason why the company doesn’t bother with social media.

“We sell a good product, and it’s all the same,” Castellano Jr. said. “All the stores you go to, it should be the same.”

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That continuity and ready nostalgia has earned more fans than drug-front speculators online. One such fan is Joel “Tatu” Herrera, the owner of Folklores Coffee House on South Flores Street, about 4 miles from Fred’s headquarters.

“(As a kid) I remember vividly on Fridays my dad would always get Fred’s Fish Fry,” Herrera said. “(For) our parents’ generation, that was the place for fried fish.”

A few years ago, he struck up a friendship with the Castellanos and toured their facility where they make the bulk of their menu items in-house. “Me being a chef, to me it’s amazing that they’ve kept up this legacy going for such a long time,” he said.

He was so impressed, he took to Facebook to promote the brand, making it the No. 7 reason to love the South Side, a clap back at the persistent drug-front stigma.

The Castellanos have heard it before, and shake their heads with a weary laugh.

“Let me tell you something,” Castellano Jr. said. “We don’t do stuff like that.”

Castellano Jr., who was a former chairman of San Antonio’s Firefighters’ and Police Officers’ Civil Service Commission, said such rumors about Fred’s don’t bother him because a) only “people who are stupid” make up such stories and b) he can assure that “the police and everybody else has looked at it and checked us out, (and) we have no problems.”

The law sure seems to back him up. The San Antonio Police Department replied to an Express-News inquiry into such rumors by noting its narcotics division has no record of issues at any Fred’s Fish Fry locations.

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“I think the big charm to Fred’s is when you grew up on the West Side and the South Side, that’s what you could afford,” Herrera said. “When you go to Fred’s you feel like you’re back home, all those memories and that good stuff. That’s the great thing about food, and that’s the great thing about having something consistent like them.”

That whimsical love for Fred’s also goes for its employees. Christina Stricker was 5 when she had her first Fred’s fish from the Somerset location. Now 47, she rings up such memories at many a Fred’s register, including the one on North Zarzamora.

“The fish has not changed,” Stricker said, then added with a laugh. “The atmosphere hasn’t changed.”

What will change for Fred’s is how customers can express their appreciation for the chain beyond just picking up another three-piece fish to-go.

For the first time, Fred’s will sell branded T-shirts. Those should be out in the next couple of months, just in time for Fred’s third Fiesta medal release. Fred’s also is looking into food delivery services such as Grubhub for those who’d rather reel in their orders from home or work. And they’ll have a new website soon with more food photos and information.

In the meantime, Fred’s Fish Fry looks to just keep on keeping on with the same no-frills formula that’s made it the biggest little seafood chain in San Antonio, despite one whopper of a fish tale about how they do it.

René A. Guzman is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rguzman@express-news.net | Twitter: @reneguz