Join the Startup Grind Irvine Chapter, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs, as we welcome Mike, aka “The Strategist”, Co-Founder of Kings of Fi$h & Principal, San Pedro Fish Market Enterprises. Admission includes food, so please plan on arriving to munch & network.
On Good Friday 1982, The San Pedro Fish Market and Restaurant opened for business on the LA Waterfront in San Pedro; in June of 2016 Mike Co-Founded Kings of Fi$h to help tell the story of the founding family and the 60 year journey from small corner store to California's Largest Restaurant!
You will not want to miss this opportunity to hear directly from a strategic entrepreneur that has succeeded in taking his large vision into tangible growth and overcome numerous challenges, including working with his younger siblings, to get where he is at today.
[Must be 18+ to attend]
Kings of Fi$h & San Pedro Fish Market
Co-Founder & CEO
Michael Ungaro, is a strategic entrepreneur who has helped steer is small family restaurant into a SoCal institution with a cult following. He started Kings of Fi$h to help tell the 60 year story of the family and business. The San Pedro Fish Market has seating for 3,000, and serves over 2 million meals a year.
Mike, aka “The Strategist”, started at the family restaurant, San Pedro Fish Market, at age 7 and didn't stop until his father pushed him to go to college at USC at 18. After graduation he transitioned to banking and then insurance, only to return to his entrepreneurial roots at San Pedro Fish Market at age 26, instead of pursuing a MBA. After his father's passing in 1999 he decided to open his own restaurant concept which ultimately failed, and almost lead him and his young family into bankruptcy. He returned to San Pedro Fish Market in 2006 bringing a fresh outlook and an immeasurable level of business knowledge and experience that he began to apply to the family's business.
In June of 2016 Mike Co-Founded and self-produced, Kings of Fi$h, an award winning, web-series telling the story of San Pedro Fish Market's founding family and the 60 year journey from small corner store to California's Largest Restaurant!
Some of the Uncommon Accomplishments since Mike returned include:
* Holding 4 Guinness World Records from work at the World's Largest Lobster Festival www.LobsterFest.com
* Top 10 most Instagrammed Restaurant in USA for the last 3 consecutive years as recognized by TIME and CNN.
* Grown to 3,000 seats making us the largest restaurant in CA, if not the USA.
* Sell over 200 tons of shrimp annually.
* They are the 2nd most popular, paid, seaside attraction from Seattle to San Diego (Sea World is #1).
* Experienced double digit sales growth for 10 consecutive years starting in 2008 during the Great Recession.
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