Ivar's In QSR Magazine

Why it Bears Watching When thinking of quick-service, seafood isn’t generally the first thing that comes to mind. Yet for 66 years, Ivar’s Restaurants of Seattle has been wowing its customers with its chain of fast-casual seafood bars. “The high quality of the seafood is what differentiates us from our competitors,” marketing director Kirsten Wlaschin claims.

That and the cultural accoutrements the company has picked up over the years, including paper “dive masks,” tap-dancing mascots in clam suits and a large collection of silly seafood jingles, most penned by Haglund himself. (Among the most popular titles are “Hail to the Halibut,” “Hark, Hark the Shark,” “Run, Clam Run,” “Ernest the Sea Urchin,” “Sandy, The Sand Flea” and “A Sea Squirt Problem.”)

All of which raises the question of mobility—whether the concept can be exported. Recently the chain agreed to open a new unit at SeaTac airport between Seattle and Tacoma. It operates several units at the University of Washington’s Husky Stadium. And it’s looking to expand into other minor and major-league sport venues scattered throughout the Pacific Northwest. Mostly, though, Wlaschin says, quick-service seafood is a West Coast thing.

“We get lots of letters and calls asking us to grow locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally,” she says, “but we’re looking at opportunities in our own backyard. The West Coast is our top market, including the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California.”




		Originally published on May 10, 2004.
Ivar’s Restaurants By Sherri Daye When Ivar Haglund started Seattle’s first public aquarium on the city’s waterfront in 1938, he had no idea that he was launching a culinary adventure. A well-known folk singer and local icon, Haglund was also a practiced angler whose love of the sea knew no bounds. Droves of people lined up to pay a nickel for a view of the sea life he’d personally collected from nearby Puget Sound. Noticing that his customers were working up hearty appetites, Ivar began selling them red clam chowder and fish ‘n’ chips while they waited in line. The aquarium lasted only a few seasons. The good eats, on the other hand, took off like a scared bat ray, eventually blossoming into the quirky quick-service seafood empire that Ivar’s Restaurants has become today. “Because of that history,” says Kirsten Wlaschin, the company’s director of marketing, “we’ve had an emotional connection to our customers for more than 65 years. Coming into Ivar’s is fun; you’ll have an experience much different than at any other restaurant.” For starters: quick-service halibut ‘n’chips, salmon ‘n’ chips, clams ‘n’ chips, scallops ‘n’ chips, baby prawns ‘n’chips, or oysters ‘n’ chips served fast-casual style from the chain’s 25 Ivar’s Seafood Bars located throughout the Northwest. Several more units are in operation at Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, and there’s one in San Jose, Calif. The company also owns three full-service seafood restaurants—each with an adjacent fish bar—including Ivar’s Acres of Clams at Pier 54, the site of Haglund’s original aquarium. Since 1990, the company has also operated 11 Kidd Valley Hamburger stores, all offered in fast-casual mode. In addition, it runs a commissary producing its own line of chowders and tartar and cocktail sauces for sale at retail outlets worldwide. More recently, the company opened a wholesale division to provide those products to giant local employers including Washington State Ferries, Boeing, and Microsoft. “We are multifaceted,” Wlaschin says. “We’ve survived a long time because we’ve grown methodically with a variety of concepts. It’s not a simple model—that’s what makes us interesting.” Haglund died in 1985, just shy of his 80th birthday, with only an inkling of the empire he’d founded. Today a statue honors the old fisherman at Pier 54 where his first restaurant stands. “Everyone has a personal connection with the man and that’s really important,” Wlaschin says. “A lot of companies don’t have that connection to their communities.”		Why it Bears Watching When thinking of quick-service, seafood isn’t generally the first thing that comes to mind. Yet for 66 years, Ivar’s Restaurants of Seattle has been wowing its customers with its chain of fast-casual seafood bars. “The high quality of the seafood is what differentiates us from our competitors,” marketing director Kirsten Wlaschin claims. That and the cultural accoutrements the company has picked up over the years, including paper “dive masks,” tap-dancing mascots in clam suits and a large collection of silly seafood jingles, most penned by Haglund himself. (Among the most popular titles are “Hail to the Halibut,” “Hark, Hark the Shark,” “Run, Clam Run,” “Ernest the Sea Urchin,” “Sandy, The Sand Flea” and “A Sea Squirt Problem.”) All of which raises the question of mobility—whether the concept can be exported. Recently the chain agreed to open a new unit at SeaTac airport between Seattle and Tacoma. It operates several units at the University of Washington’s Husky Stadium. And it’s looking to expand into other minor and major-league sport venues scattered throughout the Pacific Northwest. Mostly, though, Wlaschin says, quick-service seafood is a West Coast thing. “We get lots of letters and calls asking us to grow locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally,” she says, “but we’re looking at opportunities in our own backyard. The West Coast is our top market, including the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California.”
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