Fast forward nearly a decade to 2020. My family and I have been serving folks in the Phoenix area from first, a 14ft trailer, then up until March of 2020 from a 32ft Freightliner food truck.
We have served folks from our truck from San Diego to Las Vegas, won many awards for our Signature Maine Lobster Rolls and made many friends and followers along the way. We have been incredibly blessed.
I think of how we started, at our very first Arizona event back in January of 2012, hanging out the window of my trailer trying to entice some very skeptical folks into trying a taste of my lobster on the end of a toothpick. There were more “no thank-you’s” than takers. From that…to a line that could sometimes be 4 hours long.
Then COVID. And change.
We were loaded and ready to attend the 2020 Scottsdale Festival of the Arts when at the 11th hour it was canceled. We sent out a Hail Mary call to “Brett the Vet” in Scottsdale, a location we had been to on several occasions and asked if we could set up in his parking lot to try and sell what we had stocked for the canceled event. He, as always, welcomed us. As did all of you, showing up on such short notice. We sold out at what turned out to be our final event for the Maine Lobster Lady Food Truck in Arizona.
(Yes, you read that right. Our food truck won’t be returning to the streets of Arizona. It’s ok to cry a little – we did, too!)
After that event, with all that was unfolding, we decided that it did not feel socially responsible to ask folks to come out and stand in a long line, close together when some virus we had just started hearing about was sickening so many. And I was worried for my family. The last thing I would ever want is to chance putting them or anyone else in harm’s way. My decision to call it a season was made.
The family crew at this point was my life partner, Greg, my daughter Rachel and her husband Patrick, my daughter Ruby and myself. My youngest daughter Rozalyn along with her husband, Luther, and my two grandkids were back in Maine as the kids are now school age and had to stay put after several seasons of working with us on the truck. Roz runs the island version of the truck during the summer months.
Now that our season was cut short, we wanted to get back home so we could all be in one place. I felt very anxious being separated by so many miles during such an uneasy time. It was the end of May 2020 before we were able to travel back home to Maine and arrived around Memorial Day.
I had realized that the long periods of separation during the winter months coupled with the thought that if something happened and I couldn’t get back quickly or they couldn’t get to me, was overwhelming. And I’m not….ahem…a youngster, so there’s that.
I knew I had to figure out how to get my Maine Lobster Rolls into the hands of those who wanted them while staying home, close to my family.
I, along with lotsa others in the country, looked to online ordering and delivery. I thought, why not Maine Lobster Lady Lobster Rolls?! Maine Lobstah Love, in the form of kits shipped straight to your door with no lines and no waiting. We’d been selling them off the truck for years. We just had to teach ’em how to fly.
It took nearly a year from inception to our first shipment on July 27, 2021.
We have already shipped our Maine Lobster Roll Kits and other Lobster meal kits to 21 states. (You can order yours here!) We are still doing this family style. Team Lobstah as ever, only a bit differently. We want you all to know that we care about what goes into each and every box and how it is packed. We notice where each package is being shipped and recognize some of your names and recall the faces that match them. And we will certainly miss those faces, and want to be sure to stay connected online. You all gave us a chance. Your trust and loyalty has been overwhelming and will never be forgotten. We love you all! ❤️
I need to thank my family for their undying love and support. Uprooting themselves each October to travel, schlep their belongings and pets so far away and work tirelessly so I could live my dream. Family is everything. Family IS The Maine Lobster Lady. There is no way in hell I coulda done the last 10 years without them. Nor would I have wanted to.
Lastly, with all this, please know, this is not the end by any means, but a new beginning. It’s adapting, bending with the wind. It’s about gaining wisdom with age and knowing priorities. A new chapter in our book. I hope you’ll like the read. More soon….
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We welcome your questions, comments and pictures.