Locals Seafood will celebrate the grand opening of its new East Raleigh market on May 18, 2024 with hourly chef demonstrations and a 10 percent discount on a variety of North Carolina seafood packages, including shrimp boils to soft shell crab kits.
Locals Seafood is a leader in North Carolina’s seafood industry and specializes in bringing fresh North Carolina seafood from the coast to inland communities (as opposed to sending it to Northern fish markets). Locals Seafood focuses on selling seafood caught by North Carolina boats or landed on the North Carolina coast. The company sells fresh and frozen North Carolina seafood as well as specialty seafood items for the home cook, such as dry-aged whole fish, seafood stocks, smoked fish dip, crab cakes and bottarga (cured mullet roe). The company sells directly to consumers at two retail markets and four farmers markets from Raleigh to Asheville and operates a counter-service restaurant in the Durham Food Hall. They also sell wholesale to restaurants, Weaver Street Markets and Whole Foods.
The new East Raleigh retail market occupies the front corner of a 10,000-square foot building at 1408 Corporation Pkwy, Raleigh. Most of the rest of the building is used for Locals Seafood’s whole fish butchery and seafood processing operation. Locals purchased the building in June 2022, and equipment and cold storage improvements were partly funded by an IMPEC grant distributed by the N.C. Department of Agriculture for the sole purpose of increasing capacity and efficiencies in the production side of meat and seafood processors in the state. The new facility and equipment has tripled Locals’ capacity to process and store fresh and frozen North Carolina seafood.
Lin Peterson, the other Locals Seafood co-founder added: “Having a seafood processing facility further inland in the Triangle is actually a huge benefit to the consumer. We are excited to open our doors to the public. We feel that this facility can serve as a flagship for the North Carolina seafood industry.”
The grand opening festivities for the East Raleigh market will be from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, May 18. The event will include hourly chef demonstrations on how to fillet a fish, how to shuck an oyster, how to clean a soft shell crab and how to peel and devein shrimp. Customers also will receive a free “Locals Only” t-shirt with a $100 purchase.
Locals Seafood will be offering a 10 percent discount on these seafood packages during the grand opening:
- Summertime Shrimp Boil (feeds 2-4 people): 2 pounds in-shell shrimp plus andouille sausage, potatoes, corn, garlic herb compound butter and lemons; $60
- Shrimp Steam Bags (feeds 2-3 people): 2 pounds in-shell shrimp with garlic herb compound butter, lemons and cocktail sauce; $38
- Raw Oyster Kit (feeds 1-2 people): 2 dozen raw oysters plus mignonette, cocktail sauce, horseradish, lemons; $35
- Soft Shell Crab Kit (feeds 2 people): 2 soft shell crabs with tartar sauce, pickles, coleslaw, brioche buns and one package Tidewater Seafood breader; $35
- Clam Boil Kit (feeds 2-4 people): 3 dozen clams plus lemons, compound butter and cocktail sauce; $30
- Dry Aged Whole Fish (feeds 2-3 people): 2-pound dry-aged whole fish, trussed and stuffed with lemons, herbs and butter, $40
- Seafood Grill Kit (feeds 2-4 people): 2 marinated fish skewers, 2 marinated shrimp skewers and 2 bacon-wrapped scallop skewers; $65
- Frozen Seafood Kit: two crab cakes, one pint each of she crab soup and fish chowder, one quart of seafood stock, one-pound crab claw meat, one-pound peeled and deveined shrimp, one-pound scallops, four-count bacon-wrapped scallops and a fillet sampler with three different fish; $185
The new East Raleigh market’s regular hours are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Fridays and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays. The address is 1408 Corporation Pkwy, Raleigh, N.C. 27604.