Ivar's is a seafood

Seafood

Seafood is any form of marine life regarded as food by humans. Seafoods include fish, molluscs , crustaceans , echinoderms . Edible sea plants, such as some seaweeds and microalgae, are also seafood, and are widely eaten around the world, especially in Asia...

 restaurant

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

 chain based in Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

, United States, with operations in the Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

 region; in Spokane, Washington

Spokane, Washington

Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...

; and in Santa Clara, California

Santa Clara, California

Santa Clara , founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852, is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. The city is the site of the eighth of 21 California missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asís, and was named after the mission. The Mission and Mission Gardens are located on the...

.

Ivar's was founded in 1938 by Seattle folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 singer Ivar Haglund

Ivar Haglund

Ivar Haglund was a Seattle folk singer and the "flounder" of Ivar's.-Background:Ivar Haglund was born in Seattle, Washington. Ivar Haglund was born to pioneers Johan Ivar Haglund, ­ a Swedish immigrant and Daisy Hanson Haglund, daughter of Norwegian immigrants...

. Having built Seattle's first aquarium

Aquarium

An aquarium is a vivarium consisting of at least one transparent side in which water-dwelling plants or animals are kept. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, marine mammals, turtles, and aquatic plants...

 on what is now Pier 54

Pier 54, Seattle

Pier 54 is a tourist pier Seattle, Washington. Previously an active shipping pier and warehouse, Pier 54 was originally known as Pier 3 until it was renumbered during World War Two. This pier was also known as Galbraith dock and the Galbraith Bacon dock...

, he decided to add a companion fish and chips

Fish and chips

Fish and chips is a popular take-away food in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada...

 bar to feed his visitors. The bar was short-lived, however. On July 22, 1946, Haglund opened a new restaurant, Ivar's Acres of Clam

Clam

The word "clam" can be applied to freshwater mussels, and other freshwater bivalves, as well as marine bivalves.In the United States, "clam" can be used in several different ways: one, as a general term covering all bivalve molluscs...

s, at the same location. The aquarium closed ten years later, but the restaurant remains.

Ivar's has two other full-service restaurants: Ivar's Salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...

 House in Seattle's Northlake

Northlake, Seattle, Washington

Northlake is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, that consists of the southern part of Wallingford, below N 40th Street. It is so named for being on the northern shore of Lake Union. Landmarks are Gas Works Park, with the Wallingford Steps above, and Ivar's Salmon House...

 neighborhood, and Ivar's Mukilteo Landing in Mukilteo, Washington

Mukilteo, Washington

Mukilteo , which means "good camping ground", is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. The population was 20,254 at the 2010 census. It is on the shore of the Puget Sound, and is the site of a Washington State Ferries terminal linking it to Clinton, on Whidbey Island.Mukilteo is...

, next to the Washington State Ferries

Washington State Ferries

Washington State Ferries is a passenger and automobile ferry service owned and operated by the Washington State Department of Transportation that serves communities on Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands. It is the most used ferry system in the world and the largest passenger and automobile...

 terminal. There is a fishbar outside of all three full-service restaurants. All its other locations are seafood bars. Ivar's created the famous saying of "keep clam" that is posted all over each of the eateries.

Nard Jones

Nard Jones

-Life:According to Jones' self-description in "Puget Sound Profiles",he was born in Seattle and graduated with honors from Whitman College, beginning his career as a campus correspondent for the Walla Walla Daily Bulletin...

 remarked in 1972 that Haglund was "not afraid to reflect Puget Sound tradition in the decor of his restaurants, whereas others of his profession seem intent on making their patrons forget where they are." In this respect, he singled out the Salmon House, "an almost exact replica of an old Indian longhouse.

Every Independence Day from 1964 until 2008, Ivar's sponsored the Fourth of Jul-Ivar's festival and fireworks

Fireworks

Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...

 show at Downtown Seattle's Myrtle Edwards Park

Myrtle Edwards Park

Myrtle Edwards Park in Seattle, Washington is a 4.8 acre public park along the Elliott Bay waterfront north of Belltown. It features a 1.25-mile long bicycle and walking path and is a good place to see eagles, gulls, and crows....

 on Elliott Bay

Elliott Bay

Elliott Bay is the body of water on which Seattle, Washington, is located. A line drawn from Alki Point in the south to West Point in the north serves to mark the generally accepted division between the bay and the open sound...

. Ivar's estimated its attendance at around 300,000 people.

On April 3, 2009, Ivar's announced it was no longer sponsoring its Fourth of Jul-Ivar's community fireworks show. Ivar's decided to focus its efforts on feeding families in the Pacific Northwest through its partnership with Northwest Harvest.

Ivar's also owns the Seattle-based burger restaurant chain, Kidd Valley Hamburgers.

Underwater billboard hoax

Capitalizing on founder Hagland's reputation for eccentric marketing stunts, Ivar's put out a story that Hagland had placed billboards on the bottom of the sound, related to a proposal he had once made for submarine traffic as a viable mode of transportation. Some documentation was released, including maps of possible sub-aquatic billboard locations. On August 22, 2009 one of the rumored signs was discovered and hoisted out of the water, advertising a cup of Clam Chowder for $0.75. Several other signs followed. The signs were displayed publicly as authentic, with Ivar's saying that for a time they would honor the $0.75 price for chowder.

All of this turned out to be a hoax. The signs were sunk earlier in 2009, and local historian Paul Dorpat had deliberately furthered the hoax. Dorpat, of HistoryLink

HistoryLink

HistoryLink is a website that is an encyclopedia of Washington State history. The site has more than 4,500 stories. There are 500 biographies and more than 14,000 images....

contributes a weekly column to the Seattle Times, and successfully hoaxed that newspaper. Several minor clues were placed to guarantee that the hoax would eventually unravel. For example, the chowder price wasn't correct for the ostensible date, and wrong governor's name was on the letterhead from the Department of Fisheries.