T.J. Clemente's Hamptons Traditions #23 - Tully's Seafood Market

For over 35 years Neil and Louise Tully provided the Hampton Bays community with their daily seafood needs. So many vacation home owners as well as locals would drive down to Tully’s Seafood Market on, 78 Foster Street, to feast their eyes on the amazing selection of fresh available sea food iced and ready to be prepared on the premises or packed up to be brought home. About seven years ago Jim Coranesi of Cor-J Seafood rescued Tully’s, purchasing the business in order to as Jim said, “Preserve the tradition.” For many years Jim supplied Tully’s with a good portion of their fresh sea food. The only change Jim has made is to have more cooked seafood available only because as he says after being in the business himself for over 25 years it is the current trend. “Today the customers want to buy a lot of their seafood prepared.”

Walking into Tully’s is like a walk back in time, and always an experience. The iced collection of shelled fish immediately catches your eye. The huge Lobster tanks filled with live lobsters for sale, either bagged to be taken home, or cooked and prepared right on the premise is impressive. In fact Tully’s will UPS’s fresh live lobsters for you, to friends , or even your own home. Friendly Tully’s employees pointed out the chowder clams, cherry clams, the little neck clams , along with the top neck clams. In front of the clams stack on in the ice like decks of cards, were the sardines, my mothers favorite. One employee smiled as she showed off the fresh squid and local sea weed. They are displayed with both local mussels and the Prince Edward Island Mussels. Also right there were both the local Peconic Bay scallops and some Nantucket scallops. I made note of the sea urchin too. Closing out that whole collection of delicious fresh seafood were the stone crab claws, the shucked oysters (in Jars), lumped crab meat and an inviting sea weed salad.

Way to the left in Tully's was the collection of prepared dishes of sea food on display. It is said Nicole Kidman ordered here a lot during the filming of a movie she was shooting right in the neighborhood. There is grilled salmon, real crab cakes, panko tilapias, and seared tuna with the sesame seeds, barbecue salmon, and crab wonton. Majestically displayed were the “Mini Crab cakes and Mini Shrimp cakes” of which Tully’s had sold 50 just that day I visited. The staff of employees are cheerful, knowledgeable and down right friendly.They help and serve customers the famous traditional Tully’s home made soups in a very warm way. A small collection of fresh seasonal veggies are marketed right by the counter.  There are desserts available as well and on a shelve are many bottles of the various varieties of the trendy “Hoboken Edie Sauces.” The aroma’s of all the freshly prepared and ready to sell dishes on display was really tempting. Many customers enjoy seeing what they are getting before ordering it. That is one advantage of purchasing the Tully’s cooked fish entrees.

To the right is the fresh catch fish collection that Tully’s owner Jim Coranesi has been providing for so many years. A short distance away at 30 Lighthouse Road, is Cor-J Seafood where Jim and a staff of about 6 employees cut and clean the fresh fish, which is brought over to Tully’s for sale. Available fish includes salmon, cod, Tilapia, blue, halibut, grey sole, arctic char, striped bass, Chilean bass, swordfish and of course sushi quality tuna.

For the locals and visitors Tully’s provides a great seafood takeout menu that includes the usual codfish and fries, chicken and fries, scallops and fries,crab cake sandwiches, fried soft shell sandwiches, tuna salad sandwiches, chicken breast both grilled or fried sandwiches along with hot dogs. One can call 631-728-9043 and have a nice bucket of hot steamers or mussels prepared or even have a bucket of mixed steamers and mussels. The word is the sweet potato fries are to die for. However no orders are accepted after 6PM. So order early.

So the "Tradition" continues in Hampton Bays of running over to Tully’s for you seafood needs. Now there are more options along the prepared food items available. The staff is ready to serve you, advise you, and help you pick what seafood you might want to take home with you to be cooked or take home already prepared.