Wallis Seafood Closes After 50 Years

Wallis Seafood, which recently celebrated 50 years in business in Barrington, has closed.

Owner Tom Wallis, who has spent most of his life in the family business started by his parents, said in a handmade note posted on the front door and windows of the 136 Maple Ave. business:

“Throughout the economic downturn of the past few years, I have struggled to keep my business afloat. Sadly, the time has come when I must close my store.

“After 50 extraordinary years, I will personally miss all of you, and thank you for your patronage and friendship with me, my staff and my family.

“I hope to see you in my new endeavor in the seafood department of Whole Foods Market on North Main Street in Providence.

“Best wishes.”

Wallis made the decision to close the store last week after he received the job offer from Whole Foods.

"It came up suddenly," he said. "I'm thrilled to take it. But I had to close more suddenly than I expected to."

"It's breaking my heart to walk away," Wallis said. "But I'm looking forward to sequeing into something new."

A decision on selling the business and the property has not been made yet, said Wallis’s wife, Jane.

“We’re up in the air on what we’re doing,” she said. “I don’t know what we will do.”

Even while celebrating the store’s 50 years in business in February, Wallis mentioned his struggle to keep the store in business while competing with bigger stores. He said then that he had many regular and loyal customers, just not enough of them.

"I always had great support from the community," said Wallis, who ran the business for 33 years after buying it from his parents with a brother in 1979. "But times have changed. The way we eat and purchase food has changed. And the big box stores arrived. It changed everything."

Wallis also said prices of wholesale seafood have risen in an industry "that is grossly over-regulated.

Another major issue was the cost of insurance, Wallis said, including product liability.

"They swallowed me," he said.

“I can’t believe it,” said his wife. “It’s so said because he has been such a big part of this community. He’s been in this business since he was 11 years old.”

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

Wallis Seafood became one of the best-known businesses in Barrington. And the third oldest in town. Only Vienna Bakery and Barrington Radio and Electric opened before the seafood store.

Wallis began working in the store with his mother, Louise, while his father and a brother, Russ, went out on the boat to catch lobsters. 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.

Tom bought out his brother’s share in 1997. Russ continued to fish and serve as a supplier until early this year, when he retired.

Over the years, Wallis employed many high school students in the store, said Jane. Many of them came back to work over the holidays when they came home from college.

The store also sponsored Little League teams and donated to church and school fundraisers too numerous to mention.

“When he has a day off now,” Jane said of her husband, “it will be a real day off.”