Thirty two years ago, Bill McCormick saw the future when he walked into the past at Jake’s Famous Crawfish, a Portland dining institution since 1894. A year later, he owned the joint and began a restaurant empire now including 38 locations in 29 cities in 19 states.  Doug Schmick, a former waiter, soon partnered with McCormick and the pair opened their first expansion beyond Jake’s with a McCormick & Schmick’s in Seattle.

Growth continues apace, with new openings each year since 1991 (Hackensack NJ, Orlando, Dallas and a second Atlanta store added this year).  Each dining site includes a full service bar and lounge, and an extensive wine list.  McCormick’s original fascination with 1890’s fixtures is reflected in a majority of the chain’s locations, half of which are in buildings included in the National Register of Historic Places.  In addition to a roster of restaurants, McCormick & Schmick Management Group operates eight separate banquet and catering sites.

Group founder McCormick was born and raised in the Boston area.  His raspy East Coast, Irish-flavored brogue matches the image one might imagine with a pub keeper.  Following graduation from Brown University, Bill heeded Horace Greeley’s advice and came westward.  He tended bar in San Francisco, where he soon became co-owner of a saloon in the trendy Union district.  Selling this operation, he moved into management with a growing Refectory bar and restaurant chain (based in Sacramento) that moved him to Portland to open a new market.  That’s when we met him, as a regular patron in our bar at Jake’s, where we negotiated his purchase of the premises when he split from the Refectory and took over Jake’s in 1971.

Personnel Make the Difference

McCormick is a people person.  “Bricks and mortar are cheap.  It’s our people that are the key to our success,” he declares.  He encourages creativity…”our management team reflects independence and are not required to follow the ‘cookie cutter’ formula of the typical chain.  We don’t stunt thinking with an excessive corporate structure or discipline.
Our culture is not mahogany and stained glass, it’s people who like what they’re doing.  We see ourselves as maintaining a Pacific Northwest culture that we’re taking into other markets.”  He cites Nordstrom (the old Seattle shoe store) as a role model for his expansion.

Personnel training is a McCormick & Schmick maxim.  Managers go through a 6-9 month training period in a Northwest operation before taking the helm of a new site.  “Opening a new store means we hire 90-125 people from the store’s market area…and yes, we’re talking many minimum wage jobs in terms of salary,” McCormick says, but points out that his firm’s new help get a thorough background in their field.

Fresh seafood is the menu motivator at all M&S locations, with the exception of Portland’s Jake’s Grill, just up the street from the original Jake’s, and a creation from the mind of McCormick…”it was my idea, and earned some argument from our group…it has a prime beef emphasis…I wanted a gender-friendly atmosphere, not the macho effect of the typical steak house.  Cigars and whiskey are great, but we encourage wine just as much,” he explains.  The new M&S Grill in Washington D.C. near the original McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant, follows what McCormick terms  a  “doubling strategy” as successfully created with Portland’s neighboring pair of Jake’s.

M&S establishments feature a menu “Fresh Sheet” that describes each day’s available fin and shell fish…and wait personnel are educated in the contents, which vary with restaurant location.  Oysters on the half shell are a must at every site, but other items vary according to what’s in season and what local ocean specialties  (Atlantic,  Pacific or Gulf) are in vogue, with up to 40 seafood species the daily custom.  M&S menus each feature 85-110 freshly prepared items, with meat and poultry, salads, pasta and desserts included.

Trade names vary

While “seafood restaurant” aptly describes all but Jake’s and M&S Grills, there is a variance in other M&S titles.  The Portland and Seattle areas each include a Harborside and a McCormick’s Fish House & Bar, in addition to their McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants.  Seattle also has an M&S Wing’s Café at the Boeing Museum of Flight.  Catering has become an important  McCormick & Schmick Management Group adjunct.  Separate kitchen facilities devoted to catering and banquets currently exist in
eight locations…two in Seattle and one apiece in Baltimore, Bethesda MD, Berkeley CA, Denver, Portland and San Francisco.

The McCormick and Schmick fiefdom also covers items in addition to food and drink.  All restaurant outlets offer a Jake’s Seafood Cookbook, private label wearables that include T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, aprons, shorts and umbrellas and packaged foods that include Jake’s chowder, cocktail & tartar sauces, chocolate truffle cake and cedar BBQ planks for Salmon.

Success in a tough field

The restaurant industry is justly famous for a high percentage of failures, particularly in the fine dining category that McCormick & Schmick habitate.  In 1997, M&S sold to the conglomerate then operating over 200 Applebee sites.  The news caused business heads to nod in recognition of a presumed decease of an entertainment concept that had run its private course.  Not so.  “The association with Apple South was structured to allow us to maintain creative control while improving our banking lashup for further growth,” McCormick explains, and more recently, total M&S needs have reverted to the founding principals (who have certainly demonstrated a successful grasp of their field).

Far too often in the dining biz, owners try too hard to be trendy…to adapt to what seems to be the latest craze.  Tradition—old, old tradition, is the message McCormick absorbed when he tossed a few back at Jake’s Crawfish over 30 annums ago.  He and his partner Schmick keep this in mind with every new opening.  Their establishments each convey a warm atmosphere and are staffed by folk who see their roles as a profession, not just a means to finance college.  Whatever the market location, offering fresh seafood on a constantly changing menu carves a relatively rare niche in the dining spectrum…and quite profitably ties in with American food preference in the past decade.

Conservatism combined with class and creativity is a powerful path to profit in a very tough business that hangs its collective hats at 720 SW Washington in the heart of Portland.

© 2002 Oregon Magazine