It’s a Wednesday in February at Braun’s Kitchen, and the rhythm is noticeably different from the frenetic energy of mid-July. In the summer, the outside picnic tables are packed with weekenders hunting for the freshest lobster roll on the North Fork.
Today, the pace is steady, warm and local.
I am sitting with a large cup of New England-style clam chowder packed with so many fresh clams they get stuck in my teeth, a distinctly first-world problem of eating here. A fried flounder sandwich arrives at the table that’s so large that the crispy golden fillet hangs off both sides of the French roll.
Across the table sit Cody Homan and Keith Reda, the two men tasked with running the Braun Seafood Co. empire, founded in 1928.
When I ask Homan to clarify their official titles for the record, the answer is delightfully vague. “Haha, I genuinely have no idea,” he texts me later when I ask for specifics, adding a laughing emoji. “I think my dad is still technically president. You can put ‘general manager’ for Keith and ‘vice president’ for me, or vice versa.”
Fittingly, both men order the same lunch: the grilled mahi sandwich. They admit they eat here much more often in the summer, simply because there isn’t time to drive the five minutes home.
As it approaches its 100th year in operation on the North Fork, Braun Seafood Co. is blending old-school fish-market roots with technology, delivery logistics and event catering to transform a family operation into a modern East End seafood powerhouse — while maintaining its local identity.
Northforkers certainly know the retail market and the kitchen, but most only see the tip of what Homan calls the “iceberg” of the business sitting behind the fish market in the warehouse.
It’s where all the action is.
“People have no idea how much tuna Keith cuts every day in the summer,” Homan says. Answer: roughly 1,000 pounds — daily.
“Only the crème de la crème makes it up to the fish market.”
The wholesale division accounts for about 85% of the company’s revenue, servicing over 700 accounts across Long Island. If you are eating at a high-end seafood restaurant on the East End, there is a very good chance your dinner came from Braun.
The Prodigal Son and the Lifer
The partnership between Homan and Reda bridges generations. Reda, a fixture at Braun for roughly 38 years, started working here around age 15. His initiation rite was tallying shellfish.
“Do you know how to count?” Reda recalls being told. “Cause we need to count 100 clams 20 times.”
He knows the building’s history better than anyone, vividly recalling the old door with a porthole window. Once, arriving early for a shift as a teenager, he stuck his hand through the opening in the door to let himself in and accidentally tripped every alarm in the facility.
Reda eventually trained in refrigeration under Homan’s grandfather, Jim Homan, before attending school for the trade and returning to Cutchogue.
“It’s in your blood,” Reda says. “Especially if it feels like a family, it feels like a place that you want to be.”
Homan, the third generation of the family to lead the business, started even younger.
“I think my dad gave me a nickel for every fly I swatted in the old office,” Homan jokes, recalling his days as straight up “child labor.” He eventually graduated to scaling and gutting fish, but left the North Fork to pursue law and business in Boston and Manhattan.
It wasn’t until he was a working lawyer that the family business drew him back out east. Driving home from an autumn wedding, dreading the return to the city, he had an epiphany.
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life commuting out of New York City,” Homan says. “I’d rather be really busy, five minutes from where I work.”
Trial by Fire
Homan’s return to the business was a literal baptism by fire. A massive blaze struck the facility, right around Father’s Day in June, 2019, destroying millions of dollars in inventory and freezer space. Nine months later, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world.
Instead of folding, the team worked out of trailers in the parking lot for 18 months. Surprisingly, the pandemic became a catalyst for growth: as city residents fled to the East End, Braun’s became an essential food source.
Homan credits his business school background with helping him navigate the chaos.
“If you can just reframe how ‘business is just problems’ — and solving those problems better than your competition … [you] turn those problems into opportunities.”
The ‘New’ Braun
Now, the focus is on modernizing a nearly century-old operation.
“We’re literally in the middle of right now … finishing off the online ordering,” Homan says.
Until recently, much of the operation ran on pen and paper. Last June, they installed a new point-of-sale (POS) system in the market. Now they’re launching a wholesale app that allows chefs to place orders late at night that land in real time in Braun’s system.
Time is always of the essence with fresh seafood, and even in unforgiving Hamptons summer traffic, the Braun team might make as many as 300 deliveries a day. The app is designed to streamline logistics so fresh fish isn’t stuck on Montauk Highway for hours.
Homan laughs, saying that modern chefs expect “Seafood Amazon,” wanting last-minute halibut orders delivered instantly.
“We’re trying to really ‘carrot and stick’ our customers into like, ‘Hey, get your order in earlier and we’ll be there earlier.'”
The digital overhaul extends to the retail side as well. Homan is finalizing online ordering for the fish market, allowing locals to verify inventory and order ahead.
But the biggest shift might be fresh fish deliveries to customers. What started as a pandemic necessity — drivers dropping off orders to grateful residents in quarantine — has become a fixture of the business. Homan sees a huge opportunity in home delivery in the Hamptons.
His logic is simple: at the end of a long summer day, convenience wins.
“Half the time they’ve all had a couple drinks at the vineyard or the beach and they don’t want to leave their house,” Homan says. “Why would you?”
Beyond the Market
The company is also expanding its lifestyle and events division, a venture that began almost by accident. Years ago, a staff member spotted a cheap aluminum boat at a Christmas tree shop and thought it would make for a fun oyster display.
“It leaked all over the place,” Reda says with a laugh. “They had to warn customers not to put it on their antique dining tables.”
Today, that scrappy spirit has evolved into a fleet of custom-built raw bar boats from Cape Cod and a branded food truck entering its third summer, and second full year.
The expansion has generated exciting opportunities. This June, when the U.S. Open returns to Shinnecock Hills, Braun will handle the seafood for the hospitality tents.
It’s a long way from swatting flies for nickels.
Despite the challenges of fire, plague and logistics, Homan has no regrets about trading the courtroom for the fish market.
For him, it’s a gradual evolution.
“It will never be perfect,” he says. “Get a little better every day.”
North Fork Sun Food & Lifestyle editor Jaymee Sire is an Emmy Award-winning TV host, writer, and North Fork resident. She hosts the Webby Award-winning podcast “Food Network Obsessed” and appears as a judge on several Food Network shows, including “Beat Bobby Flay.” She documents the local food scene for the North Fork Sun alongside her partner and photographer, Justin Aharoni.