When complete, the expansion will create two or three new jobs, Patterson said. The shop employs 10 people now.
Patterson co-founded Foremost Seafood in 1983 as a wholesale operation, and the shop now serves about 50 wholesale accounts, including restaurants, caterers, hotels and grocery stores. Foremost added walk-in retail sales in 2001.
First-time customers who visit the shop are surprised at the absence of a display case of already-cut seafood, and Patterson said he has no plans of adding one during this expansion. Instead, customers place their order, and the fish is cut and shown to the customers, who approve it before it is wrapped and sold.
“The best way to sell fish is fresh off the knife,” Patterson said. “I know no one else does it this way, but we think of the fish first.”
The shop’s owners will add a second checkout and have already added display space for breading, seasoning, oils and other dry-goods items used in cooking seafood. Patterson’s wife Pam, co-owner of Foremost Seafood, maintains an extensive collection of seafood recipes in the shop’s waiting area.
In the seafood shop’s back room, Patterson will add refrigerated storage space and processing areas for cutting fish, pending approval from Kettering city officials. The shop offers a wide variety of seafood from throughout the world, bringing in products from Boston, Seattle, Miami and Alaska, among other sources.
Foremost Seafood is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday and Monday, and is closed Sunday.
For more information, go to the Foremost Seafood website or call (937) 298-1986.
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