From Sea to Seaview’s Kitchen

Seaview Crab Company’s New Takeout Kitchen is Quite the Local Catch

It’s been the vision over the last decade for the Seaview Crab Company owners trifecta – brothers Joe and Sam Romano and Nathan King – to not only harvest from our fertile coastal waters and serve the Wilmington area with the freshest catches of seafood, but to also conserve the ocean and beaches in the community where they’ve thrived from the beginning.

“We’ve always had that disposition to reuse, recycle, repurpose in our organization, and now we’re working toward getting recognition for that,” says Joe, “because we’ve traditionally used more ecofriendly practices.”

Romano is referring to Seaview’s foundational commitment to making the extra effort to be environmentally friendly, which includes their latest step in making their newly opened takeout kitchen on Marsteller Street officially ocean-friendly certified through the Plastic Ocean Project program.

The new takeout kitchen, he says, opened in mid-February before the world shut down due to the Covid pandemic. This certification means Seaview is using ecofriendly takeout containers that can be composted; placing recycling bins at all locations; eliminating excess seafood waste from the retail markets by incorporating it somehow into the kitchen’s menu or recycling skin and waste products into dog treats, fish scraps, bait, or guitar picks; and offering reusable thermal-insulated bags to customers.

Brothers Romano and King were first hooked into the seafood business working as commercial fishermen, retail fishmongers, fish cutters, dock hands, and everything in between. What started as a roadside stand manned by the three has now grown to seven Seaview market locations – with the takeout kitchen at their headquarters on Marsteller their newest venture.

“Our new kitchen is a learning process on how we want to define ourselves,” says Joe. “We’re learning how to work new things, like kitchen management and menu creation.”

The Seaview menu, he says, is a blend of traditional seafood items, like the Pickled Pepper Po’boys and fried seafood platters, along with daily chef inspired specials; healthy options, like their harvest bowl of keto greens and seafood; and a seasonally changing menu as well.

“I would say our fried or grilled crab cake, which is 95% crab, is one of our most popular orders, says chef Brandon Stark. “It’s a super lump special blend and, like everything, it’s made here in house.”

Executive chef Stark, along with chef Brad Royal, according to Joe, bring to the Seaview kitchen a wealth of seafood farm-to-table culinary backgrounds well known in town – Stark, with 16 years under his toque.

“We’re using as much local products as we can from our local farmers for vegetables and fruits and all of our local fishermen for the freshest fish we can get,” confirms Stark.

“They both complement each other really well,” adds Joe. “What gets us most excited is that we’re learning how to really utilize all aspects of seafood and we’re connecting with a different type of consumer who maybe wants to try local seafood, but is too intimidated to cook it. This is a way to expose people that otherwise wouldn’t get exposed to fresh North Carolina seafood. And that’s a big thing.”

Joe is also happy to report that their clientele is a diverse culinary demographic, ranging from regulars at the fish market, who want crabs steamed, to foodies who are less inclined to cook fish.

“We’ve always prided ourselves as being that outlet for everybody,” he says. “And I think that rings true for our market counters and takeout kitchen as well.

“I’m just very grateful that we still have a good business going during all of this,” he continues. “We’ve got a great team and we want to expand at some point in the future, but we want to get a year under our belt.”

To order takeout or pickup, call 910-769-1554 or visit www.seaviewcrabcompany.com. Seaview Crab Company kitchen is located at 1515 Marsteller St. (about a mile from NHRMC). Hours are Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.