Hagen's Fish Market Celebrates 80 Years As 4th Generation Takes Over

Hagen’s Fish Market is marking its 80th anniversary in Portage Park this summer as the business is taken over by the fourth generation. The shop’s hardwood smoker, a long-standing local landmark, remains central to its identity, alongside renovations and menu additions over decades. Owner Eric Johnson said the company’s consistency with customers and fish quality has endured, and the family-run model is the reason: Eric, the great-grandson of one of the founding Hagen brothers, assumed control at the start of this year at age 27. Johnson, who previously studied at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, returned about five years ago to learn every department before shifting to full-time work. The market began in 1946 when Hagen’s brothers and their wives moved from Washington Island, Wisconsin to Chicago, with the father securing a mortgage to launch the store. Today, Hagen’s operates one of the last surviving natural hardwood smokehouses in Chicago, alongside Calumet Fisheries in South Chicago, while weekly shipments now come from around the world as Great Lakes fish supply declines due to invasive zebra and quagga mussels.