Iacino ate dinner with Rogers in Alaska just hours before the famed cowboy-philosopher was killed in a plane crash. Iacino made many friends in the course of his travels, including Will Rogers. The couple then traveled around the world by plane on a six-month honeymoon. In 1937, he married Jeannie Bungee in an airplane one mile above the Mile-High City. He was the first to import to Denver such luxury items as Icelandic lobster dainties, Spanish red shrimp and Australian lobster tails.Īlthough he was never a pilot himself, Iacino developed a deep love of flying. Soon, he was traveling all around the world in search of the finest products for his Denver market. In 1935, Iacino moved his retail store and warehouse into larger quarters at 1537 Market Street that the company would occupy for nearly 50 years.ĭuring the 1930’s, Iacino traveled to Washington State and Alaska to establish a personal relationship with many seafood suppliers in those areas. The city’s plentiful Greek restaurants were also valued customers. The company also sold a lot of fish to the city’s Roman Catholics, many of them recent immigrants, who were proscribed from eating meat on Fridays. He had two slogans: “If it swims, we have it,” which is still the company’s slogan today, and “Get the habit, eat more rabbit.”ĭuring the Great Depression, fish and rabbit provided an inexpensive main course for many a Denver family, and Seattle Fish began to grow. In the company’s early years, Iacino also sold rabbits – “Good choice rabbits – 75 per dozen” – as well as fish. He set an example for his employees by regularly working 70 hours per week, and continued to report to the office until his 90th birthday.

For nearly three-quarters of a century, Seattle Fish would be his life. In 1918, at the age of 16, Iacino set off on his own pursuit of the American Dream when he opened the Seattle Fish Market in Lower Downtown Denver. After only a few years of formal schooling, Iacino got his start in the seafood business when he began selling oysters in a corner of the family store. At the age of four, he was sent to Denver to join his three older brothers, who operated the Diamond A meat market at 15th and Lawrence. Mose Iacino, who was destined to become a well-known and well-loved Denver personality, was born in Grimaldi, Italy, in 1902. Seattle Fish sells to all of the region’s sushi restaurants, where quality and freshness are imperative. Seattle Fish Company credits their success to good business practices, an enduring commitment to product quality, outstanding customer service, and long standing relationships with vendors and customers.Īs a pioneer in the industry, Seattle Fish Company was one of the first in the nation to voluntarily adopt a USDC HACCP program in November 1989, which features on site supervision by quality control technicians and U.S. For all of that time, it has been owned and operated by the Iacino family. In 2005, Seattle Fish Company will celebrate 87 years of doing business in Colorado.

The company distributes to Colorado out of it’s Denver office, which employs 100 people. Seattle Fish Company is one of the largest wholesale distributors of fresh and frozen seafood west of the Mississippi. The company also distributes fresh and frozen seafood to many of the region’s major supermarket chains. Today, Seattle Fish Company provides fresh fish to many of these same establishments, and to many others throughout Colorado. In the old days, Seattle Fish Market sold its fish to customers who visited its retail outlet and to Denver’s finest restaurants and hotels. The product travels in special shipping containers that maintain it in peak condition. Today, fresh and frozen seafood is flown into Denver International Airport seven days a week from both coasts as well as from other port cities around the world. The highly perishable product was packed in ice that had to be replenished at each stop along the way.

In 1918, when Mose Iacino opened his downtown Denver fish market, it took a week for salmon and halibut to make the long trip from Seattle by railroad.

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