Fresh Catch, Fresh Start: Haskell’s Seafood Reimagines the Fish Market Experience

Haskell’s Seafood is keeping it fresh — and we’re not even talking about the fish.

The Westhampton Beach market and café known for its bounty of seafood straight from Long Island’s waters has finished a massive renovation and rework, doubling its size, adding indoor seats, redesigning its nautical interior, and expanding its menu.

Captain Peter Haskell, the market and café’s owner and operator, said he took a lot of inspiration from the vibrant energy he experienced dining out in Nice, France. There was an “organized effort to really enjoy the day together,” he said.

Haskell’s classic prepared seafood is still on offer, but the market now features a poke bowl station, where customers can build their own creation by picking a protein — local yellowfin tuna, fluke, or red shrimp — and adding homemade toppings, including a ginger and soy-forward seaweed salad from Violet Cove Oyster Co. in Mastic Beach or a spicy Atlantic red crab salad on top of either greens, grains or rice.

“It’s all-star, local reenvisioning of the Hawaiian recipe,” Haskell said.

There’s also an even bigger raw bar, making it possible to grab whatever shellfish your heart desires and a new seafood sampler platter is available for those who want a taste of everything — the ornate order contains all of Haskell’s fresh salads. There is also a new wine and drinks menu so you can pair your meal with refreshing sips with recommendations from the staff.

And Haskell’s Seafood now sports 16 seats inside and about two dozen seats scattered across its garden patio and front sidewalk, along with a nautical European vibe from its pillows to paint.

“It feels almost like you’re on the water” when you dine there, said Michael Brunetti, the founder of neighboring Brunetti Pizza Wine Bar. “What Haskell’s is doing on Main Street, especially in such a casual, relaxed atmosphere, is great. And now it’s much more like a café.”

Haskell — who also maintains Haskell’s Bait and Tackle in East Quogue and a major seafood preparation facility nearby — sees himself as more than a fishmonger or broker.

Not only does he go out fishing himself, but he has relationships with fishermen across the island who keep their pulse on the currents, temperatures, wind direction, and what populations of fish and shellfish may become abundant and when. Instead of bringing in only the most popular fish (tuna and bluefish, for example), Haskell’s includes more obscure, lesser-known varieties that have similar taste profiles.

“They have the best seafood on Main Street,” said chef Andrew Hartmann of Ivy on Main. “You can just buy it to go home and grill a piece of fish and you can be assured that you’re having an amazing experience with seafood.”

Hartman has been working with Haskell’s to put fresh fish on Ivy on Main’s menu for almost three years now, including for its fish sandwich, which currently features locally caught porgy, on the weekends.

“There are these fish that are really, really beautiful, that come off the shores of Long Island that they have access to, and it’s a local, sustainable fish that’s not from an overfished population,” he said. “It’s something that people may not approach for a dinner entree, but if they have it, they can say, ‘Oh, that’s really good. Why haven’t I explored this?’”

“It’s a real connection to our local fisheries,” Haskell explained. “We only work with local fishermen directly. There’s no middleman, so we can tell the story of every fish or shellfish that’s in the market, as to where it was caught, what time of day, the fishermen who caught it, what the water temperature was, what the weather conditions were. And through that storytelling and transparency, we create a bigger connection with the customer.”

Currently, Haskell’s works with more than 100 fishermen and crew on top of the many dock workers, fish cutters, packaging crews and drivers that bring local seafood to the stores, including his fiancée Melissa Rachubka, who works as the general manager at the processing facility and market.

“We’re fortunate that we’ve always attracted good people,” Haskell said. “You know, I look at my staff time and time again when the public compliments us, ‘Your staff is so wonderful.’ I can take some credit for the training, but I know we’re so lucky that we seem to attract the right people for this job.”

Not one to slow down and smell the roses, the Flanders resident reopened Haskell’s Seafood on Main Street just as his 50th birthday rolled around this spring.

It was a rare moment to take it all in.

“As I was approaching that birthday, having done all this construction in the market … doing the carpentry, doing 10 jobs at once — willingly and happily — and I’m feeling exhilarated because we were opening on time, and I was reflecting on my career a bit.”

Since he got his first commercial fishing license at 14 years old, he’s been handing customers freshly caught clams and seafood.

“I was the guy in high school who would come to the party with a bag of clams,” he recalled.

With ample access to the water, you’d think running a seafood business would be an easy lift here in Westhampton Beach, but since Haskell got in the game, he’s had to rise above circumstances that might’ve put others out of business.

He opened his first store, Haskell’s Bait & Tackle, in 2007, right before the economy tanked. Then in 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit, devastating the coastline and its fisheries.

Despite that, he was able to open Haskell’s Seafood in 2015 and the seafood market processing facility in 2017, which as of now delivers to local markets and restaurants, including Amagansett’s Amber Waves Market and Café, Schmidt’s Country Market in Quogue, Channing Daughters Winery in Bridgehampton and Water Mill, Westhampton’s Ivy on Main and Daphne’s, Almond in Bridgehampton, schools across New York state, and locales as far away as Buffalo.

With the business’s success, Haskell opened the Market on Main Street in the winter of 2020.

And then the pandemic hit.

“We could’ve closed the doors, but during these times of change and disruption, I looked at what we have and was able to pivot quickly. I’m not afraid to change,” he said. “I’ve never seen a challenge as a failure. It’s a pivoting point.”

Haskell’s became an essential business during lockdown, delivering fresh seafood to people’s homes when getting to the supermarket was either not safe or stores were low on products. The company still delivers to homes to this day, including to the elderly and disabled.

While the next chapter for Haskell’s Seafood has yet to be written, it’s clear that the passion behind it — providing the community with the freshest food from local waters — has seen it through to this point.

“All these things accumulate to your life’s work and to be able to reflect and just feel the joy in it is, at least, significant,” Haskell said. “And to do this for the rest of my life, I know I’ll never have a boring day.”

Haskell’s Seafood Market and Café, located at 77 Main Street in Westhampton Beach, is open daily from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.