Catch of the Day
Cover Story
By Chris Petersen   
Monday, 15 January 2007
smc King's Fish House plans for national expansion while remaining focused on high-quality, affordable seafood.
King's Fish House plans for national expansion while remaining focused on high-quality, affordable seafood.
King’s Fish House wants guests to be comfortable at its restaurants, and Food and Beverage Director John Nye says the chain sees its outlets as “seafood ambassadors” that introduce novice diners to varieties of fish they normally wouldn’t consider eating. The company’s approach seems to be working, as more than 2 million guests dine at King’s Fish House restaurants each year, making it the largest seafood restaurant chain in Southern California.

With a focus on high-quality seafood at affordable prices, Nye says, King’s Fish House’s tagline is “Welcome to the House that Seafood Built.” The company’s continuously updated menu, centralized seafood processing and warm atmosphere have helped it achieve that goal, and an expansion of its bar service and additional openings are expected to keep it afloat.

Founded more than 20 years ago by cousins Sam and Jeff King, the family owned chain has nine locations in Southern California and one in Henderson, Nev. Nye says the company is in a growth mode, with plans to open several new locations in 2007, including Tempe, Ariz. Northern California and Reno, Nev., are also being considered as locations for future King’s Fish House restaurants.

“We’ll continue to grow in the West; and we will grow at a rate that will allow us to continue delivering a high-quality product to our guests,” Nye says. King’s Fish House is one of the few seafood chains in the country to move into new territories without established seafood restaurants, he adds.

Freshest Fish
Nye says the company understands that some of its potential guests are skittish about seafood, so King’s Fish House tries to overcome their reservations. People who have never tried oysters before can try one for free, and the company recently began featuring sushi in its restaurants. “We’ve introduced a lot of people to sushi now,” Nye says.

In addition King’s Fish House updates its menu on a regular basis. “It’s a very large menu,” Nye says. “It’s printed twice daily, so it’s really kind of alive with what’s available.” This means guests are assured that their dishes are being made with the best-possible seafood products available.

Differentiating Factors
King’s Fish House can offer guests this certainty because the company handles its own seafood distribution from a centralized processing facility. The restaurants’ chefs check the company’s Web site and order their fish based on daily availability. This allows the company to develop a menu with more variety and with fish that’s fresher and arrives faster.

The company has also set up distribution capabilities to be able to handle new restaurants outside of its current markets. This way, the company will be able to maintain the freshness of its food even as it expands into new markets.

For an example of the variety at King’s Fish House, Nye says, the restaurants feature more than a dozen types of fish on its char-broiler menu. “We maintain nine oyster varieties at a time, and those are changing weekly,” Nye says. The menu is set each day by the company’s chief seafood officer, Matt Stein. Nye is responsible for developing recipes. “The recipes and parameters are designed by me through an approval process with a menu development team that consists of the president, chief seafood officer and myself,” he says.

Making Changes
Nye says King’s Fish House has had great success recently thanks to an overhaul of its drink service. The company’s expansion of its bar service has dovetailed with a growing trend among consumers to drink higher-quality spirits in smaller amounts. Nye says this trend has pushed King’s Fish House to respond with a greater emphasis on cocktails made with premium liquor.

“If they’re going to have one, it’s going to be a good one,” he says. For the first time, King’s Fish House placed a cocktail menu at every table last year. “We went from selling 80 mojitos in a month to thousands just by putting that out there,” Nye says. “The drink sales exploded for us.”

With support from drink vendors, King’s Fish House has included trendy cocktails such as the mojito and pomegranate cosmopolitans in its service, and response has been largely positive.

Health concerns are another trend that King’s Fish House is watching closely. Nye says that as consumers become more concerned about their eating habits, they will demand that nutritional information be made available.

The company is working on a program to include such information on its Web site.
 
< Previous Story   Next Story >