Wallis Seafood: 50 Years in Business

Tom Wallis never thought about staying in business this long.

Wallis, the owner of one of Barrington’s best-known businesses, Wallis Seafood, at 136 Maple Ave., will celebrate 50 years in business on the fish store’s anniversary date, Feb. 22. That also happens to be the same date Wallis, 61, moved into his building on Maple Avenue in 1980.

Don’t expect a huge celebration – just some cake throughout most of the day with samples and specials throughout the week on some seafood, especially stuffed shrimp. Wallis will surely spend some time talking Red Sox baseball with you if you insist.

It was Wallis’s father, Russ, a lobsterman, who opened the store in a small storefront on Bay Spring Avenue in 1962 when Tom was 11 years old. His mother, Louise, sold the catch of the day.

“It was a real village, then,” Wallis said of West Barrington. “Not too much around. It did have its own post office, though."

Operating the business “was a struggle the first three or four years,” Wallis said. “(His father) decided to open the store because lobstering was in a cyclical decline in Rhode Island.”

Since that day, Wallis Seafood has become one of the best-known businesses in Barrington. And one of its oldest.

“I think Vienna Bakery opened in 1935, and Barrington Radio and Electric opened in the late ‘40s,” he said. “Then I think it’s us.”

Wallis Seafood still offers lobsters daily, said Wallis, and you can buy fresh seafood of all kinds and a host of prepared foods, which was “the first big change in the store in the 1980s.” Among his prepared products: lobster bisque, chowder, stuffed quahogs, clams casino, crab and fish cakes, New England clam boils, cole slaw, seafood and snail salads, shrimp platters.

His seafood comes every other day from the Boston Fish Pier, where “you can get just about anything you want from all over New England within a half-mile radius,” he said.

Tom began working in the store with his mother, Louise, while his father and a brother, Russ, went out on the boat to catch lobster. Another brother, Bob, who died in 1995, became a carpenter.

Tom and Russ bought the business from their parents in 1979 and moved to Maple Avenue a year later.

“I was always Mr. Inside,” Tom said. “He (Russ) just wanted to fish.”

Tom bought out his brother’s share in 1997. Russ continued to fish and serve as a supplier until about three weeks ago, when he retired.

Competing with the big box supermarkets “in an industry that is over-regulated” is his biggest challenge, Tom said. The result has been fewer people shopping at the store but “they spend more money per average sale,” so the store still thrives.

He credits his success to being part of the fabric of the community, a familiar face who has been able to build local relationships with customers over the years.

Even though his brother has been out of the business for about 15 years, Tom said, Russ will join him on Feb. 22 to celebrate the store’s 50th anniversary.