Seahawks greats Chancellor, Sherman open Bellevue restaurant

Former Seattle Seahawks players Kam Chancellor and Richard Sherman are opening a new soul-food restaurant and sports bar in Bellevue’s Lincoln Square this week.  

“I love food,” said Chancellor, a longtime safety for the Seahawks. “But the reason I wanted to start a restaurant was years ago I did a barbecue back home in Norfolk, Virginia. I served thousands of people free food and brought the community together and I wanted to stop as much violence as I could. But it was always over food. I love soul food, it’s always been in my heart.” 

The new restaurant is called Legion, a nod to the Legion of Boom (the team’s legendary defensive backfield, which included both Sherman and Chancellor) and serves “upscale soul food.” Chancellor hand-picked Legion’s chef, Reginald Jacob Howell, after eating his cooking at the popular restaurant En Rama in Tacoma.

On the menu are classics like fried chicken and country-fried catfish, and more inventive dishes like a gumbo burger, which includes a shrimp patty, a chicken andouille patty, Holy Trinity rice, herb crab meat, charred pickled okra and roux ketchup.  

This isn’t Sherman’s first taste of the restaurant world; he owned two Wing Stop franchises in Seattle. 

Legion soft-opens tonight, Oct. 3, at 5 p.m. with a limited menu. The full dinner menu will be unveiled on Friday, Oct. 13.  

Legion, located at 700 Bellevue Way N.E., took over the Pearl Seafood and Oyster Bar space, which closed in 2020 at the start of the pandemic.