Legal Sea Foods, A Massachusetts Seafood Chain near Capital One Area and at Reagan National Airport,

[Keithstg]

1 hour ago, Kibbee Nayee said:

Right inside the TSA PreCheck line from the Jet Blue area in Terminal C.

Gotcha. I’m not a Jet Blue flyer, but have had luck with the Legal Test Kitchen and the Legal seafoods by the United gates. The LTK menu varies, but at the other Legal I have had good luck making a meal out of the Crab Bisque and the tuna sashimi.

[dcs]

On 12/21/2017 at 5:50 PM, Keithstg said:

The LTK menu varies, but at the other Legal I have had good luck making a meal out of the Crab Bisque and the tuna sashimi.

D'accord.  I just had this for dinner tonight at National Airport.  Well gin is Citadelle, btw.

[dcs]

Tysons Corner’s Legal Sea Foods Will Serve Its Last Lobster Roll This Month - The suburbian location is closing on Wednesday, September 26, by Tierney Plumb, September 4, 2018, on dc.eater.com.

[Bob Wells]

20 minutes ago, dcs said:

Tysons Corner’s Legal Sea Foods Will Serve Its Last Lobster Roll This Month - The suburbian location is closing on Wednesday, September 26, by Tierney Plumb, September 4, 2018, on dc.eater.com.

Not a huge Legal fan like I was back in my Boston days, but it's always been decent. Can't say I'm surprised, however. The place never looks too full, and the permanently shuttered "Legal to Go" takeout stand gave the place a forlorn look (to me anyway).

[DaveO]

On 9/5/2018 at 11:02 AM, dcs said:

Tysons Corner’s Legal Sea Foods Will Serve Its Last Lobster Roll This Month - The suburbian location is closing on Wednesday, September 26, by Tierney Plumb, September 4, 2018, on dc.eater.com.

Per the article and an employee at Legal Sea Food at the Galleria;  rent was the issue.

It certainly must have been.  If you want to get a feel for the rental increase they were facing:  Go to this In Depth Credit Analysis of the Mortgage on the Tysons Galleria.  Its the same document that was used in a business article, you referenced earlier @dcs, with regard to the Isabella Eatery.  I linked to it back in 2016 when the Isabella Eatery was first announced.

Its a long complicated document but it gives a view of what the finances are like inside a mall like this and a partial rent roll (circa 2012) which includes Legal Sea Foods then rent-->about $35/foot  (I assume triple net).   Go through that document a bit, as the article did, and you can see that basically rents written before 2012 were low and rents POST 2012 shot up like crazy.

The mortgage on the Mall comes to $1052/foot.  By my calculations that means the mall needs $60/foot rent (triple net) to break even  (actually that is a loss)....and so they need higher rents as a landlord to make the property work.   I don't know how the team leasing up the mall is working but I'm sure they value first floor space dramatically higher than top floor space.

My gut is they were trying to get $80,90, maybe over $100 foot.  from Legal Sea Food.  That is just a gut guess. 

Now Legal Seafood would see a rent increase from "somewhat more than the 2012 rent of $35/foot" to some huge number.   No wonder they didn't renew.  On top of the rent number they would pay something like over $10/foot for their share of real estate taxes, over $2.50 foot for utilities and a host of other costs.  Its expensive to occupy space in that mall.

But...if you keep going through that credit analysis document you will see that sales per foot in the mall are astronomically high across the board.  Some of the tenants are doing SUPER. 

Anyway, I always enjoyed Legal Sea Food; not the greatest Sea food by a long stretch but a solid place and it was once really great in Boston.  I used to frequent it at the Galleria.    Maybe they should renew the lease at a "market rate" that would satisfy the landlord--and they can charge $58 for a shrimp cocktail.   That would be neat!!!!--OR NOT!!!