Legal Sea Foods tries to hook diners on new wine list

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 16, 1985 by Mort Hochstein

The Legal Sea Foods restaurant in the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston is a restaurant where growth never ends. It began as a grocery store in 1904, added a fishmarket in 1948 and a seafood restaurant in 1967. There are five Legal Sea Foods restaurants in Boston today, and they have taken on added luster with the institution of one of Boston's finest, award-winning wine lists.

Legal remains a plain-folks place which will not take reservations and often keeps customers waiting an hour or more during peak periods. It will not keep hot food waiting either, so diners are often served straight from the kitchen by the first available waiter.

Its clientele is a mixed crowd, united by a common lust of fresh fish and crustaceans. Customers are more likely to call for beer or Blue Num than for a fine Chardonnay. How to woo or educate the diner to an expensive, expansive list was the problem faced by Roger Berkowitz, grandson of founding father Harry, and son of George, the fish specialist.

You bring great wines to the cellar, but can you sell them? Roger can and does.

First, Legal tries to take the mystique out of wine so that even the least-sophisticated customer may order without feeling awkward. Waiters are trained to know it all without coming on like know-it-alls. (Roger has his own painful memory of a classic put-down by a supercilious waiter in a fancy restaurant. "I ended up defensively insisting on a sauterne with my prime rib," he ruefully recalled. "And I was in the business!" He wants no customer of his cornered into a wrong choice or a red face.)

The wait staff is expected to be comfortable with wine. "There is a definite correlation between how much a waiter sells and his ease at opening bottles," Roger said. "Our house wine has a cork-finished bottle. We gets the wait staff in early to open wines for the bartender; it gets up their confidence. Then, once a month at least, there's a seminar for waiters. A new group coming in may get twice a month. At the end of a shift, we might pull a bottle of wine and taste it with the staff."

George Schwartz, Legal's official wine buyer and a former school teacher, runs the seminars, explaining the basic qualities and categories, tasting the wines (always with food) and, of course, comparing countries, wineries and vintages. Wine Steward Sean Mahony makes sure newcomers can pronounce the names and serve properly. "We try to humanize the situation," Roger said. Since a good half of Legal wine customers ask the waiter for a suggestion, wine literacy is an important goal."

Legal is unpretentious to the extreme. "We need to sell wine," Roger admitted. "Our food costs are very high and the only thing that really offsets it is wine sales." This philosphy is shared with the staff, where the cheerful slogan "the bigger the tab, the higher the tip" is on every tongue.

In the kitchen hangs a long tally sheet on which each waiter jots down his/her wine sales, just in number of bottles. Weekly high-scorer gets a prize--a bottle of good wine or a gift certificate, for example. There might also be an award for the highest-priced bottle of the evening.

A consistent low scorer will be in for a discreet talk with the boss. "Usually," said Roger, "the problem is that he's not comfortable either with making the suggestion or serving the wine. Eightly per cent of the time, we can correct it."

I addition to a smart staff, Legal promotes wine visually. Centrally located on the dinner menu is a notice about the "diverse, constantly updated selection of fine wines" and an invitation to "ask about" house wines, featured selections and new arrivals to "enhance your seafood dinner." Daily specials include--up to half space--beverage specials, often a plate with wine. The wine list is a 41-page computer printout, with categories including grape juice varietals, a gpage of special values and half bottles, coming attractions and a very broad selection of wines listed by year, label, price and the number of bottles still available. On June 2, 1984, for example, inventory was dwon to four bottles of 1981 Latour Corton Charlemagne (at $55), while there were still 101 bottles of Chateau La Croix Pomerol, 1979, at $15.95.

There's a four-tap cruvinet and wine by the glass is encouraged, in "glass" or goblet" size. The house wine, a Duc de Valmer, sells for $2.25 the glass ($8.95 the bottle). Often, custoemrs waiting at the bar, which also is a clam bar, featuring raw sea food and appetizers like mussels au gratin and smoked bluefish pate, will like a glass of wine so much that they'll order a bottle for the table.

On draft, there are five beers and an ale, which sell well. Other best sellers are specialty drinks, including a pina colada, strawberry daiquri, orange sherbet colada and the Pousse Rapier--armagnac with essence of orange, orange juice and coldada mix, which sells at $3.75. "It's not the most profitable," Roger admitted. "We do it more for uniqueness than margin or markup." The Legal Cooler--wehite zin, French sparking (the house wine) and cassis at $2.95 is a big profit item, he's glad to say.