Loco Lobster opens in East Moriches
The lobster roll at Loco Lobster in East Moriches. Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus
Loco Lobster promises “crazy good seafood” and the new East Moriches restaurant lives up to its motto with a menu of more than 60 items, many of which take lobster in nutty new directions: lobster fries drizzled with Alfredo sauce, lobster pizza with Alfredo or scampi sauce, lobster mac & cheese, lobster mashed potatoes, fried chicken-and-lobster sandwiches, lobster grilled cheese, lobster tacos and quesadillas.
Among the tamer lobster items are a straight-ahead lobster roll (hot or cold), lobster bisque and lobster tails.
The casual, order-at-the-counter eatery took over the old Pit Stop Pantry. There is seating both inside the high-ceilinged, vaguely industrial space and outside on a landscaped patio.
Owners Tony Brown and Nancy Alamia put up the sign a good year before opening day on May 22, and customers descended en masse that first week, their cars overflowing the parking lot and their orders overwhelming the fledgling kitchen. "That first week was crazy," Alamia said. "But we are stabilizing both situations."
Loco Lobster doesn’t discriminate against other sea creatures: There are clams oreganata, coconut shrimp, peel-and-eat shrimp, fried clam strips and calamari, steamed mussels, crabcakes, salmon (steamed, fried, grilled, blackened), fish and chips, sea scallops, snow crab legs and seafood fried rice or lo mein. You can build your own seafood boil with a choice of vegetables, seafood and seasoning. Not into fish? You’re covered with chicken fingers and wings, Caesar salad, mozzarella sticks, beef or roasted-vegetable sliders.
Starters range from $9 to $15; sandwiches, $12 to $25 (for that lobster roll); most mains are under $25. Alamia said that she and Brown, who both live nearby, were convinced that "the area needed a good seafood restaurant, with real depth in the menu and prices based on food costs and not what people would be willing to pay on the East End of Long Island." They operate more than a dozen casual eateries, including Sergio’s Pizza in Riverhead and Bed-Stuy Fish Fry (with five locations in Brooklyn).
East Moriches seems to be on a culinary roll this summer, with a 40% increase in restaurants. First ITA Kitchen and now Loco Lobster brings the total up to five sit-down eateries.
Loco Lobster, 223 Montauk Hwy., East Moriches, 631-909-3737, locolobsterseafood.com. Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Monday. Closed Tuesday.
