Barlion's Seafood & Poultry
Richard Barlion, Owner of Barlion’s Seafood & Poultry
Richard Barlion purchased Luken’s Poultry, Fish & Seafood from Mike Luken in late 2022. Richard has decades of experience in the restaurant business. Most recently, and impressively, he was Jean Robert’s right hand man. He had a hand in all of Jean Robert’s many hits—Pigall’s, The Table, French Crust—and sourced fish and seafood from Luken’s for all of them. At the same time Mike came around to selling Luken’s, Richard was ready to step out of the back of house and into an ownership role.
Most of Barlion’s current team members have been there long before Richard bought the company. They’ve been diligently tending to customers for years, so they’re well-attuned to what’s selling and well and what isn’t. And Richard, being one of the newest members of the crew at Barlion’s, knows to value his employees’ opinions.
“When I first took over I was buying everything,” Richard says. He learned to pump the brakes and find the balance between keeping a regular stock of the classics and sprinkling in some specialty items here and there. “Now we get one or two new things and keep it rotating, keep it special.”
Richard encourages his staff to be curious and try new things. “I try to teach the guys to be a bit more knowledgeable, and they get really into it,” he says. Some of them really lean into making a new soup of the day, or coming up with a dish for a tasting event. Fueling their creativity keeps them inspired and keeps the product selection fresh. Investing time and energy into the staff improves conditions for everyone, even the guests.
There’s a strong stigma in the restaurant industry that chefs must be controlling and overbearing to be good at their jobs, but Richard has learned from experience that simply isn’t the case. “That used to be the reality of kitchens, but why would you want to work with someone like that?” Richard says. “I try to build a positive environment everywhere I go.”
Building a positive environment entails much more than just being kind in the workplace. It looks like offering health insurance to your staff, and encouraging employees to chase their dreams, even if that means moving on from Barlion’s. “We welcome our staff to stay here if they want, but we also encourage them to explore other things,” Richard says.
Approaching their busiest holiday of the year, it’s imperative that the staff works like a well-oiled machine. Preparation for Thanksgiving begins weeks before the holiday at Barlion’s. It starts with deep-cleaning and organizing to make room for 1800 turkeys that’ll move through their space in the next month. They’ll break down 300 birds to sell in parts, and the rest they’ll sell whole to regular customers who have been adorning their Thanksgiving dinner table with a turkey from Luken’s, and now Barlion’s, for years.
They do all this on top of taking care of their weekly grocery shoppers. They don’t shelve the rest of their business to focus solely on Thanksgiving. They do both, and they do it flawlessly. It’s the reason their regulars keep coming back week after week, year after year. Great product speaks for itself, but excellent, well-informed service is a notch above.
Published October 2023