Legal Sea Foods
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| Private | |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Founded | Cambridge, Massachusetts, fish market (1950); restaurant (1968) |
| Founder | George Berkowitz |
| Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
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Number of locations
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33 restaurants |
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Key people
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Roger Berkowitz, President & CEO Rich Vellante, Executive Chef Sandy Block, MW, VP of Beverage |
| Products | seafood, restaurants |
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Number of employees
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4,000 |
| Website | legalseafoods |
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Footnotes / references |
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Legal Sea Foods is an American restaurant chain of upscale casual-dining seafood restaurants. The company was founded by George Berkowitz who opened the Legal Cash Market grocery store in 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and he opened the first restaurant next door to the market in 1968. The current company headquarters is located in Boston and as of August 6, 2014, the group operates 33 restaurants in six states, plus the District of Columbia, with most in the Greater Boston area. Legal Sea Foods also operates an online fish market and ships fresh fish anywhere in the contiguous United States, as well as a retail products division.
In 1904, Harry Berkowitz opened the "Legal Cash Market" in the Inman Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts and the name for the market came from the "Legal Stamps", also known as trading stamps, given to loyal customers. The store provided a good living for Harry and his family up until the late 1940s, when chain grocery stores like Stop & Shop and others entered the picture and provided stiff competition for the family business.
In 1950, George Berkowitz, the son of Harry, opened a fish market adjacent to his father's grocery store and named it Legal Sea Foods. This was done to add a degree of specialty to the grocery business by offering customers a fish counter where they could get fresh fish. From the early 1950s the market sold fresh fish as well as fish and chips that could only be taken to-go. In 1968, the Berkowitz family decided to open a restaurant in the adjacent space. They served mainly fish and chips, fried clams, fried shrimp, and fried scallops served on paper plates while the customers sat on picnic tables.
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