Seafood City Supermarket is among a trio of first-to-market dining and food-retail concepts anchoring new leases across Macerich's Class A shopping center portfolio, the real estate investment trust announced, underscoring growing landlord appetite for destination-food tenants capable of driving sustained foot traffic.
The Filipino-American grocery and foodservice chain, known for its full-service seafood counters, fresh fish and shellfish selections, and prepared seafood offerings, is expanding into Macerich-managed properties alongside experiential food operators Eataly and Din Tai Fung — a pairing that illustrates how seafood-forward retail continues to hold its own against broader restaurant concepts in competitive leasing markets.
Seafood Retail as Destination
Seafood City's proposition to mall operators rests on its hybrid model: part full-service Asian grocery, part seafood market, part prepared-foods court. The format typically features live and fresh-on-ice seafood, butchered-to-order fish, and a food court anchored by Filipino seafood dishes — a combination that generates repeat weekly visits rather than the episodic traffic associated with pure-play restaurants. For Class A mall operators managing post-pandemic tenant mix, that visit frequency is a measurable asset.
The broader leasing trend mirrors patterns documented across the specialty-food retail segment. Seafood and fishmonger concepts — from full-service counters inside ethnic grocery formats to standalone raw-bar and oyster-bar restaurant tenants — have posted above-average lease renewal rates at mixed-use and enclosed mall properties, according to industry observers tracking foodservice real estate. Destination dining, broadly defined, now routinely accounts for 20%-plus of new leasing activity at top-tier mall portfolios, as landlords prioritize tenants that e-commerce cannot displace.
What It Means for the Supply Chain
Seafood City's physical expansion has direct implications upstream. The chain sources a substantial share of its fresh and frozen seafood from Filipino and broader Southeast Asian supply corridors — whole fish, shell-on shrimp, live crab, and value-added prepared items — meaning new locations translate into incremental import volume and cold-chain infrastructure investment. Distributors servicing new market-entry geographies will need to map regional cold-storage capacity and last-mile refrigerated logistics to support store openings in Macerich's predominantly suburban, high-income trade areas.
For seafood suppliers and distributors tracking foodservice real estate as a demand signal, Macerich's leasing momentum is worth monitoring. Class A mall anchors typically operate at scale — Seafood City units commonly exceed 30,000 square feet — and procurement volumes at new-market locations can rival those of mid-size regional grocery chains. Suppliers with established aquaculture or import programs targeting Asian-American foodservice retail should treat this expansion as an active sales opportunity.
No financial terms or specific location counts were disclosed in the announcement.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
