Vegas Restaurant Takes a Gamble on Boston, and other Retail News

A Las Vegas-based restaurant group is set to open its first Boston-area restaurant next spring. The location is a natural fit: Encore Boston Harbor.

Carver Road Hospitality will open Seamark Seafood & Cocktails at the casino next April, joining outposts from other local restaurateurs like Frank DePasquale and Nick Varano and the restaurant and nightlife chain Big Night.

Carver Road’s co-founder and CEO, Sean Christie, is a Framingham native. He called the upcoming Encore opening a kind of homecoming, since Seamark evokes the kind of seafood restaurants he remembers from Cape Cod.

Christie began working in the hospitality industry in the Boston area before moving out to Las Vegas. There, he became an executive for Wynn Resorts, which made its name in Las Vegas but came to the Boston area itself when it opened Encore in Everett in 2019.

Christie recalled being in Everett when construction kicked off, and says the casino is now his entry back into Boston’s hospitality scene. He once worked shifts on Lansdowne Street for the Lyons Group, including at Bill’s Bar and Avalon. He also grew up around restaurants through his family: his father, Peter, was a longtime head of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association.

“I always wanted to come back to Boston,” the 49-year-old Christie said. “This is probably the most excited I’ve been about a project since we opened the company.”

Seamark will sit between Encore’s main lobby and the club Mystique in a space that was originally the restaurant Sinatra and later Harbor Lounge.