December 21, 2020 — If it’s not Roger, is it Legal?
That’s the question as Roger Berkowitz, the chief executive and public face of Legal Sea Foods, is poised to sign off as soon as Monday on the the sale of the restaurant business his family started in 1968 to PPX Hospitality Group, owner of Smith & Wollensky steakhouses and three Boston-area Strega restaurants.
The pending deal is the latest chapter in Legal’s local lore: Roger’s family opening the first Legal Sea Foods restaurant in Cambridge, next to the fish market of the same name his father had opened in 1950. The expansion into Boston, the suburbs, and down the Eastern Seaboard to Florida. The feud between Roger and his brother Marc, after Roger took over as CEO. And the comical ads — some groan-inducing, some not-quite suitable for a family restaurant — with the tagline, “If it isn’t fresh, it isn’t Legal!”