Legal Sea Foods president and CEO Roger Berkowitz began his career working as a fry cook at his family’s Inman Square fish market at age 10. Today, he owns one of the most successful seafood restaurant chains on the East Coast employing more than 4,000 people in over 30 restaurants.
The early days
Berkowitz has fond childhood memories of working in his family’s fish market.
“My grandfather had a grocery store. My father in 1950 opened a fish market right next to it,” says Berkowitz. “I remember going into the fish store and seeing the whole fish behind there. We were 10 years old and we’d come in and sweep the floors with sawdust.”
With a nod to Neil Simon’s play "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers," Berkowitz also remembers peeling shrimp as one of his main responsibilities. “I remember suffering for years of fingers that smelled like shrimp.”
Family feuds
Berkowitz acknowledges that sometimes working in a family business can be tense and says his father may have unwittingly pitted him and his brother Mark against each other when he charged them both with running the business.
“He put us in a situation where he expected both of us to run it together," he explains. “Sometimes you can pick your partners, but you can’t pick your relatives. In business that can be a dangerous recipe at times.”
Advertising controversies
When it comes to advertising, Legal Sea Foods has a history of pushing buttons. Past ad campaigns have included a photo of a young woman wearing a T-shirt that reads “I got scrod last night.” More recently, Legal Sea Foods took some heat for its “Really Fresh Fish” campaign that featured smart-aleck fish making comments like “Hey ugly, you’re scaring the fish” and “Hey lady, I’ve seen smaller noses on a swordfish.”
Berkowitz insists he isn’t fishing for trouble with these campaigns. “Our theme for the past 5 years or 6 years has been ‘Really Fresh Fish.’ We like to have metaphoric fun with the word ‘fresh.’” He adds, “I get a kick out of the fact that people get offended by it. It’s a cartoon fish saying something.”
And at the end of the day, these campaigns work: “Good advertising in general doesn’t blend and it gets you to think a little bit about what’s happening.”
Bombshell
So what’s the most surprising thing to learn about the seafood tycoon? How about this: He is not always comfortable around fish.
“I'm afraid of swimming with fish,” says Berkowitz. “I can fillet fish. I can clean fish. But when it’s alive I have issues. I always think something is going to bite me.”
