User:Moonwatch Snowave/Legal Sea Foods

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Legal Sea Foods is an American restaurant chain of casual-dining seafood restaurants mostly located in the Northeastern region of the United States.

The current company headquarters is located in the South Boston Seaport District and as of 2022, the group operates 24 restaurants in five states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia), with most in the Greater Boston area. The restaurant serves over 7 million customers annually with an average restaurant size of 6,000 square feet (560 m2). 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 addition to the traditional Legal Sea Foods branches, the company has operated some unique concepts over the years including Legal Test Kitchen, Legal C Bar, Legal Harborside, Legal Crossing, Legal Oysteria, Legal on the Mystic, and Legal Fish Bowl.

Legal Sea Foods’ long-standing tagline is "If it isn’t fresh, it isn’t Legal!"

On December 22, 2020, CEO Roger Berkowitz announced the sale of the restaurants portion of the business to PPX Hospitality Brands, a Medford-based hospitality group. Berkowitz studied radio and television at Syracuse University and later received an honorary degree from the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. He later attended Harvard Business School's OPM program, London Business School's Senior Executive Program and the Strategic Marketing Management program at Stanford University. Berkowitz will retain the rights to online and retail sales of products using the Legal Sea Foods name. Following the sale to PPX, The Boston Globe reported that Roger Berkowitz left several vendors unpaid, owing hundreds of thousands in debt.

The founder of Legal Sea Foods, George Berkowitz died on February 20, 2022. George Berkowitz was 97.

Sustainability
During SENA15, CEO Roger Berkowitz talked sustainability during the conference. He mentioned how many chefs in the industry were misinformed on the so called 'blacklisted' fish, those that were not sustainable to catch and serve. Berkowitz states how Legal Sea Foods has the responsibility of sourcing the fish appropriately and not from areas that may not support the species. An example used was the Chilean Sea-bass sourcing, where instead of sourcing sustainably farmed units, they don't source it at all. This is because the Chilean Sea-bass is an overfished species, and even serving it in the menu stating it is sustainably sourced may not portray the best image for its customers and shareholders.

Legal Sea Foods has also has a reputation of having "top catch" fishing methods, where the fish are not hauled in to the boat until it is docked, or source fish from "day boats", which are fishermen who leave to fish only for the day.

The New England restaurant chain also only serves fish which are within National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) guidelines, which are considered sustainable species by the federal government.

Locations
Legal Sea Foods operates 24 restaurants spanning 5 states.