Legal Sea Food Sale
Legal Sea Foods is an institution in his hometown of Boston and the East Coast regions. The concept began as a food service supplement at the George Berkowitz fish processing facility and market. For ease of use, the full-service restaurant asked customers to pay for their meal when ordering, not after consumption. Instead of spending money on real light fixtures, Berkowtiz Sr. placed brown paper bags on bare light bulbs hanging above the tables. While buying a full-service seafood restaurant chain may seem risky in the midst of a pandemic, Berkowitz said PPX`s acquisition of Legal restaurants fits neatly into both companies` future expansion plans. Nevertheless, a search revealed several lawsuits filed against Legal Sea Foods in recent months for unpaid invoices prior to the sale. The COVID-19 pandemic — and the resulting significant losses to Legal and most other restaurants — forced Berkowitz to rethink the future of the business and consider selling the restaurant portion of the business. The email was from a sales representative at a supplier to Legal Sea Foods, the Boston restaurant chain, which you may recall was sold at a pandemic fire sale in December. Related: Seafood trend picks up during COVID-19 pandemic âRoger chose the best option to protect jobs, protect the future integrity of the Legal Sea Foods brand and pay sellers. These priorities were clearly stated to all parties involved in the sale. The money was specifically intended for sellers before the closure, but Roger`s affiliation ended when the sale was closed and he has no knowledge of how the funds were paid. The transition from creating a thriving seafood restaurant chain to retail, e-commerce and other channels is for Roger Berkowitz, president and CEO of Legal Sea Foods, almost like a way home.
Berkowitz also plans to expand the selection of frozen seafood and value-added products available in Legal`s grocery stores and e-commerce channels. The seafood processing facility, known as the Quality Control Centre, is included in the agreement. The company generated revenue of $227.7 million in 2019, according to the restaurant company`s sister company, Technomic. In the email, Jalbert said the proceeds from the sale, which he did not quantify, were used to repay a secured loan from the lender with the first dibs on the old legal money that others have confirmed to be Rockland Trust. Jalbert said there wasn`t enough money left to fully repay a lender backed by a junior. People familiar with the matter identified this second lender as private equity firm Seacoast Capital. The sales representative, who highlighted the plight of unsecured creditors, had attached a PDF with two emails from Craig R. Jalbert, who identified himself as a certified insolvency and restructuring advisor at a Foxborough accounting firm.
A few months ago, rumors circulated that Berkowitz, whose grandfather founded the seafood business in 1950 as a fish market in Cambridge, Massachusetts, might sell the popular mid-priced chain that opened its first restaurant in 1968 to PPX Hospitality Brands, a new offshoot of Danu Partners. an Irish investment company based in Medford, Massachusetts. Although financial terms are not publicly disclosed, this transaction was closed today, both parties confirm. PPX said employees at the seafood chain have been asked to stay, adding that it hopes to have a total of 3,000 employees across all its brands once restaurants are fully operational again. “Usually, people think of frozen food as some kind of leftover that is about to spoil,” he said. “It`s actually less waste and something people can have at will. Given that the majority of high-quality seafood has always been consumed in restaurants and that this type of channel is currently under attack nationally, I think there are opportunities for us to take advantage of the restaurant experience and make it more accessible to people. There was probably no better opportunity in all of humanity to introduce this. Legal will continue its legacy of “sourcing the best seafood available by identifying local partners who source, harvest and process only the freshest seafood for a truly memorable Pier-to-Plate meal,” said Executive Chef Matt King, PPX`s Chief Culinary Officer. While Legal has been selling products like the popular clam chowder retail and online for years, Berkowitz is excited to “spend a lot more time” growing sales through these channels. At the beginning of January, mussel chowder begins on the QVC teleshopping network. Our reputation for seafood excellence spans seven decades.
We offer a wide selection of high quality fish, nitro-fresh frozen seafood and shellfish. What`s on the menu? You can order all your favorites from Legal Sea Foods here – like clam chowder, crab pie, shrimp cocktail, cod, salmon, lobster, surf and grass and Boston cream pie. Buy our seafood online, schedule your delivery and enjoy a delicious Legal Sea Foods dinner at home. Or send a seafood gift to someone who loves New England food and dishes. We invite you to shop at the Legal Sea Foods Marketplace and have the best seafood delivered to your door from the docks. Legal Sea Foods, the New England-based line of polished seafood restaurants, has been sold to PPX Hospitality, the parent company of upscale food groups Smith & Wollensky and Strega. The parties have agreed not to disclose the price. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and on the same day that Gov.
Charlie Baker announced new restrictions that will reduce business capacity limits to 25%, the sale also highlights how even the most successful and established restaurants are being impacted by the economic consequences of the public health emergency (and the lack of substantial government assistance). Like the rest of the food service, Legal Sea Foods has been hit hard by the pandemic. Six sites were closed, including Legal Test Kitchen in the seaport and Legal Oysteria in Charlestown; 18 of the company`s 27 sites have been reopened. But despite the struggles his business has struggled over the months and a sale that likely never would have happened without the pandemic, Berkowitz said there was a glimmer of hope. “After selling to them for over 30 years, I received this letter telling me they would not pay me for the products they bought and used from September to December,” the sales representative wrote. “They know that fighting me in court would cost me more than I would recover, and the same goes for the other 150 or so people they stiffened up.” The sale also includes Legal`s quality control center in the Boston Seaport. The agreement enters into force immediately. The subject line was a strior: “Roger Berkowitz and Legal Seafood [sic] deal with rigid creditors.” A brand new seafood shopping experience onlineFresh seafood delivered right to your door! At the end of 2020, a Boston restaurant giant changed hands. On Tuesday, Roger Berkowitz, president and CEO of Legal Sea Foods, announced the sale of his business to PPX Hospitality Brands, a Boston-based holding company that owns Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group and Strega Italiano. “My grandfather had a grocery store selling high-quality meat, and then my dad opened a fish market,” Berkowitz told SeafoodSource.
“Then we accidentally got into gastronomy. The space next to the fish market opened up and my people opened a restaurant. PPX becomes the owner of the rights to the Legal Sea Foods name for the restaurants, but General Manager of Legal Roger Berkowitz, whose family opened the chain in 1968, retains the rights to the name of his online business, which sells seafood (fresh and prepared), chowder, t-shirts, kitchen utensils, gift cards, etc. After building a thriving restaurant chain — before the pandemic, Legal generated more than $200 million (€164 million) in annual revenue and 33 locations — Berkowitz believes it`s time for him and his family to focus on selling through other channels such as QVC and e-commerce. What does this mean exactly? Berkowitz says he`s not yet ready to discuss specific ideas to the law for the future, but he says he`s working on a new venture called Nitro-Fresh, which will freeze and ship restaurant-quality seafood directly to private consumers.