Legal Sea Meals bought to PPX Hospitality Brand names

As 2020 arrives to a shut, a behemoth in Boston’s restaurant marketplace has altered palms. On Tuesday, Roger Berkowitz, president and CEO of Legal Sea Food items, declared the sale of his enterprise to Boston-centered PPX Hospitality Brand names, a holding firm that features the Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group and Strega Italiano.

In accordance to a press launch, the acquisition contains Legal’s Top quality Command Heart in the Seaport, as properly as the brand’s 25-additionally eating places. As element of the deal, Berkowitz will retain possession rights of the Legal Sea Foodstuff identify for the company’s e-commerce and retail business enterprise.

“It’s a little bit of mixed emotions,” Berkowitz advised Boston.com. “It was a loved ones business enterprise — specially a spouse and children organization that promotions instantly with the public. Just one of the terrific issues, I suppose, about the restaurant company in general is that you occur in contact with so several persons from so quite a few walks of existence. It is a fantastic education and learning. And it was actually a satisfying working experience for me and my relatives. That factor of it — I’m heading to miss that, no issue.”

The to start with Lawful Sea Food items cafe opened in 1968 next to a fish marketplace that Berkowitz’s father, George Berkowitz, opened in 1950. Roger Berkowitz has led the organization considering the fact that 1992, overseeing a swift expansion through Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. 

“Would I have ordinarily picked out to promote?” Berkowitz questioned. “Probably not.”

He stated that Legal Sea Foods experienced designed it through recessions and lousy winter seasons, but that the pandemic was “seismic in phrases of scope,” and that enterprise would not return to any kind of normalcy right until future slide.

“If you’re a restaurateur and you have a huge war chest, and you’re heading to sit on that and then seem at it as an chance to expand, that’s definitely one avenue,” he reported. “Certainly the team that we bought to, which is their strategy, and I think it is a correctly audio tactic to convey to you the real truth.”

PPX Hospitality Manufacturers is a relative newcomer. In 2016, Irish expense company Danu Companions acquired steakhouse chain Smith & Wollensky. Danu’s portfolio grew in January 2020 when it ordered three Strega restaurants and linked businesses — like Strega Waterfront, Strega Primary, Strip by Strega, many Caffé Strega areas, and a catering firm — from restaurateur Nick Varano’s Varano Team. Danu proceeded to create PPX Hospitality Manufacturers to oversee its U.S. operations. 

Although Berkowitz stated he will pass up doing the job on the restaurant aspect, he’s seeking ahead to shelling out a lot more time on Legal’s e-commerce enterprise.

“I’ve generally been fascinated with fish and fish managing,” Berkowitz stated. “Years back, I don’t forget obtaining into a discussion with Julia Baby. She was out on the West Coast and experienced sampled some wild salmon that experienced been flash frozen, and she was making an attempt to persuade me that it was as good as new. So we just went back again and forth we experienced a great time sort of arguing above it. But above the yrs, the technology of freezing has enhanced, to the extent that I’ve seen how they’ve been doing some actually remarkable things with nitrogen.”

Berkowitz echoed a sentiment that other fish purveyors expressed formerly this yr, noting that it can be really hard for buyers to reframe their feelings on frozen fish.

“Usually men and women consider of frozen solution as type of leftovers about to go poor,” he stated. “It’s truly less wasteful and one thing that men and women can have at their convenience. Specified that the majority of significant-excellent seafood was constantly consumed in restaurants, and that sort of channel is beneath assault correct now on a national basis, I consider that there are alternatives for us to get the restaurant expertise and make it much more accessible to people today. There has not been a much better chance in all of mankind, I suppose, to introduce this.”

Like all of the restaurant industry, Lawful Sea Foodstuff has been strike tough by the pandemic. 6 places have shut, which include Authorized Examination Kitchen in the Seaport and Legal Oysteria in Charlestown 18 of the company’s 27 destinations have reopened. But inspite of the hardships his company has endured above the months, and a sale that likely would under no circumstances have took place if it weren’t for the pandemic, Berkowitz mentioned there is a silver lining.

“Life evolves, it proceeds to evolve,” he shared. “And that is what I discover definitely thrilling. There are chances to go forward. We get to manage our heritage and legacy. I think it was a win for the team that ordered us, and it’s a earn for our spouse and children to carry on on.”