Legal Sea Foods prepares for further growth, expanding into state-of-the-art facilities, launching a new e-commerce business, and debuting improved practices to uphold the highest standards of quality and sustainability
BOSTON – (October 2, 2023) – Exciting transformations are ahead for Legal Sea Foods alongside Boston-based parent company, PPX Hospitality Brands. Fueled by advances in technology and preparing for expansion, Legal Sea Foods is strategically maneuvering to adapt and thrive. As the company embraces this new chapter, it does so with a sense of responsibility, enthusiasm, and steadfast dedication to maintaining the highest standards of quality and sustainability.
The company is growing, expanding its roster of restaurants, driving sales, and now introducing a new platform with the addition of e-commerce. Legal Sea Foods has launched a new online shop: shop.legalseafoods.com. Guests can now purchase Legal’s signature New England Clam Chowder, a variety of high-quality fish, prepared seafood favorites, and bundles that bring the restaurant experience right to your door, directly from the source. With this development, the company has invested in radically improving its support, production and fulfillment operations, while upholding their high standards of quality and sustainability.
New Company Headquarters:
When PPX Hospitality acquired Legal Sea Foods, it gained a 75,000-square-foot processing plant in Boston’s Seaport district, originally designed for large-scale industrial production. Finding it difficult to adapt the 25-year-old facility, Legal looked for solutions within the local industry. The eventual result was a creative deal allowing Legal to relocate part of the company to Boston’s renowned Fish Pier while offering a global seafood company the processing space they had been searching for. Legal and the processor agreed to a facility swap, enabling both parties to continue operations seamlessly while Legal constructed a cutting-edge facility better suited to its production needs.
Legal Sea Foods, alongside PPX’s brands Smith & Wollensky and Strega Italiano, now occupy refurbished offices on the Boston Fish Pier, next to Day Boat Trawlers, close to vital seafood partners like North Coast Seafoods, local fishing vessels and just steps away from its flagship restaurant, Legal Harborside. Situated at 212 Northern Avenue, Legal’s leadership and support teams are now intimately connected to the source, reflecting the brand’s essence. These modern offices house various departments, including accounting, HR, marketing, IT, purchasing, operations, e-commerce, and retail, all within Boston’s thriving Seaport district.
Innovation Center:
Facing the formidable challenge of the outdated quality control center, designed for industrial-scale processing, Legal Sea Foods recognized the need for a more modern space that would provide efficiency, speed, and quality assurance of its restaurant products and the introduction of e-commerce. Funded by Legal’s parent PPX Hospitality, the company unveiled its vision for the forthcoming PPX Innovation Center (IC) in Milford, MA. This 30,000-square-foot facility will serve as an epicenter for culinary and beverage innovation and excellence. The IC will provide a venue for quality control and assurance, central commissary and distribution, e-commerce and retail fulfillment, research, development and training. The IC is also poised to become a crucible of creativity, experimentation, and content creation for its brands: Smith & Wollensky, Legal Sea Foods, and Strega Italiano.
In a testament to local collaboration, Legal Sea Foods and PPX are partnering with Clarke, New England’s Official Sub-Zero, Wolf and Cove Showroom and Test Kitchen in Clarke’s 107,000-square-foot headquarters at 393 Fortune Blvd in Milford, to create the Innovation Center. Clarke’s award-winning facility provides its own test kitchen with guest seating, a fully-equipped television studio, a hydroponic farm housed in a shipping container that provides fresh produce and herbs year-round and an array of solar panels on the roof that has produced net zero electricity usage for more than a decade.
These changes underscore the company’s dedicated commitment to growth and investment in its over 2,000-strong workforce and the facilities in which they work to deliver the freshest, highest quality seafood for which they are so famous. The PPX Innovation Center is scheduled to open in early 2024.
About Legal Sea Foods
Seventy years ago, Legal Sea Foods opened as a fish market in Cambridge, MA and has since cast a wider net – now operating 25 restaurants along the East Coast as well as its own production facility and eCommerce platform at shop.legalseafoods.com. Legal Sea Foods’ iconic tagline, “If it isn’t fresh, it isn’t Legal!” speaks to its legendary fanaticism for seafood quality and safety. The restaurants serve over 40 varieties of fresh fish and shellfish throughout the year; the menu highlights quintessential New England fare, including its famous New England Clam Chowder that has been served at nearly every Presidential Inauguration since 1981. To learn more, visit www.legalseafoods.com.
About PPX Hospitality Brands
PPX Hospitality Brands is a Boston-based hospitality group that includes The Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group, The Strega Group and Legal Sea Foods Restaurant Group. To learn more, visit ppxhospitalitybrands.com/.
About Clarke – New England’s Official Sub-Zero, Wolf & Cove Showroom & Test Kitchen
For 70 years, the Clarke family has been a culinary legacy. In 1991, Tom Clarke became Sub-Zero’s first independent wholesale distributor, continuing his family’s tradition. His innovation created Clarke, New England’s Official Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove Showrooms, and took it from six employees to industry recognition with Tom being inducted into the New England Design Hall of Fame in 2019.
Now led by Sean Clarke, the innovation continues with Clarke partnering on major development projects throughout New England, embracing sustainability with solar panels that achieve net-zero electricity use, and using a hydroponic farm in a shipping container for fresh produce. They’ve joined forces with PPX for various initiatives and are launching PPX’s Culinary Innovation Center in Milford. The Clarke family’s passion for excellence since 1955 shines through this enduring friendship, collaboration, and innovation.
