The Lobster Roll (LUNCH): The Sign That Invented Summer

According to the American Dictionary of Food and Drink, Fred Terry created the cold lobster salad roll as we know it today—the mayonnaise-bound version that diverges from Connecticut’s hot butter style. Interestingly, Fred Terry himself remains characteristically modest about the claim. He’s been quoted saying, “That’s a lie” to anyone who brings it up. Then again, if you don’t ask about it, what could it hurt to let someone believe it?

The Terry Family: Settlers Turned Restaurateurs

Roots That Run Deep

The Terry family’s Long Island roots run deeper than most people can fathom. In fact, Fred Terry’s ancestors landed on Long Island in 1640, making them among the first to settle in Baiting Hollow on the North Fork. Meanwhile, his great-grandmother Theresa Collins emigrated from County Cork, Ireland, married into the family, and brought her own potato candy recipe. This confection was born of necessity in a country where potatoes and sugar were all that remained.

Notably, the family’s connection to the land is not metaphorical. Around 1999, Fred opened his second location, Lobster Roll Northside, in Baiting Hollow on property originally owned by his relatives, just across Sound Avenue from the old family farm.

A Young Man’s Venture

Fred was just nineteen years old when he and his father bought that Napeague clam shack in 1965. What they built from it would define his life—yet life had other plans too. In 2017, he sold the Northside location and stepped back from daily operations, speaking publicly about his reasons. First, he mentioned the energy required to compete in an increasingly difficult industry. Then he said something else: the death of his two sons to alcoholism had played a role. Some costs, after all, don’t appear on balance sheets.

The Partnership That Endured

Today, Fred Terry remains a silent partner and chief financial officer of the Lobster Roll enterprise, working behind the scenes on the numbers he’s crunched for six decades. However, the public face of the operation belongs to Andrea Anthony, who joined the business in 1978 as Fred’s wife. Three years later, Paul DeAngelis came aboard. Currently, Anthony and DeAngelis run daily operations as managing partners while Fred maintains his ownership stake. Remarkably, though the marriage between Fred and Andrea didn’t last, the business partnership has thrived for forty-seven years.

Andrea Anthony: The Lobster Queen

An Accidental Career

Andrea Anthony had planned to become a psychologist. Everything changed, however, one morning in 1977 when the restaurant’s manager quit and she stepped in to run the operation. She never left. Now titled President and Chief Operating Officer of Lobster Roll Enterprises, Anthony has transformed what was once a seasonal seafood shack into a full lifestyle brand. As a result, the empire now includes cookbooks, television appearances, branded merchandise, and a second location in Southampton.

The Making of a Hospitality Visionary

Anthony’s own story contains the kind of formative crucible that explains such dedication. At fifteen, she watched her mother suffer a heart attack. Although her mother survived, the event forced Andrea to grow up quickly, having dinner ready by the time her mother returned home from work.

Growing up in Levittown amid Italian matriarchs shaped her profoundly. From the mothers and grandmothers of her friends, she absorbed the connection between cooking and love. Her Russian-Italian background reinforced this heritage of family-style abundance. Nevertheless, she’s quick to note she’s entirely self-taught. “I have a tremendous respect for chefs,” she has said. “I would never put myself in the same arena.”

Building an Empire

Her arena turned out to be something else entirely: hospitality as philosophy, nostalgia as business strategy—what she calls “a lifestyle brand.” In 2003, she co-authored The Lobster Roll Cookbook, fully titled The Lobster Roll and Other Pleasures of Summer by the Beach. Additionally, she taught restaurant and hospitality management as an adjunct professor at Nassau Community College, New York Institute of Technology, and Farmingdale State College.

She also launched her own television cooking show, Eat, Drink, and Bake with Andrea, which aired on PBS, the Optimum/Altice network, and streaming platforms including Roku and Amazon Fire. Notably, the show filmed in her actual Montauk kitchen, decorated in beach-house blue and aqua. “It’s not about competition, or the throw down,” she has said. “Instead, this show is about high-quality ingredients, step-by-step recipes, and sharing time with friends and family.”

Beyond television, she founded Andrea’s Obsession Homemade Desserts, a wholesale and retail company that supplies cupcakes and baked goods for the Lobster Roll menu. Her husband, Carl Anthony, created the restaurant’s lush outdoor setting, building the wisteria arbor and summer flower gardens that Andrea calls “a Garden of Eden.”

With three grown sons—twins and an older child—every family gathering involves a six-course production. “It’s not something I do for show,” she has said. “It’s just who I am and it’s what gives me intrinsic joy. Cooking is therapy.”

The Affair: When Television Came Calling

A Starring Role

In 2014, the Showtime drama The Affair premiered, and the Lobster Roll became a co-star. Over five seasons until 2019, the show used the restaurant as a central location.

In the pilot episode, the Solloway family stops at the Lobster Roll on their way east to Montauk, where waitress Alison, played by Ruth Wilson, greets them with the line: “Welcome to the end of the world.” From there, the affair between Alison and Noah, the teacher-turned-novelist played by Dominic West, begins. Throughout the series, that fictional version of LUNCH becomes a touchstone of longing, betrayal, and class dynamics—exploring the complicated relationship between locals and summer people that defines the Hamptons.

Awards and Recognition

The show won three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Television Series: Drama and Best Actress for Ruth Wilson. As a result, production crews filmed at the Lobster Roll multiple times, sometimes taking over the space for extended shoots after the seasonal restaurant closed in October.

Andrea Anthony rented the restaurant to the production, which worked perfectly since the private residence didn’t require additional city permits. Typically, around 150 crew members would arrive, rearrange the setting, shoot their scenes, and put everything back together. “Just a total group of professionals,” Anthony said.

The Tourism Effect

The show’s impact on the restaurant’s profile proved significant. Soon, fans began making pilgrimages to find the locations they’d seen on screen. Admittedly, the show took liberties—it portrayed the restaurant as being on the beach when, in reality, it sits across from Napeague Harbor.

Meanwhile, Abercrombie & Fitch shot their entire catalogue at the location, and international visitors began arriving specifically because of the series. “We have people flying in just to walk in the building,” Fred Terry said at the time. Ultimately, this acclaim, combined with decades of steady operation, positioned the Lobster Roll for something unexpected: expansion.

Southampton: Where Summer Never Ends

The Seasonal Model

For more than fifty years, the Amagansett location operated as a seasonal restaurant, opening in late April or early May and closing sometime in October. The business model was straightforward: intense summer traffic from Memorial Day through Labor Day, when tourists, locals, and day-trippers crowded the parking lot. During the quieter shoulder seasons, the restaurant served mostly locals before the winter shutdown.

“Despite the popularity and attention from Showtime, it’s important to stay humble,” Andrea Anthony has said. “After all, one day you can be in and the next you can be out.”

The Expansion

In December 2021, the Lobster Roll opened a second location in Southampton at 32 Montauk Highway, in a space that previously housed the famed Southampton Diner. For this expansion, the original ownership group brought in a fourth partner: Irwin Simon, chairman and CEO of Tilray Inc. and former CEO and founder of the Hain Celestial Group.

Anthony had known Simon for about twenty years, and when she felt the brand had reached its ceiling, she reached out. “I contacted him to join our group,” she explained, “because we needed somebody to catapult us forward.”

Year-Round Operations

Simon suggested the Southampton diner location, which Anthony describes as “on the perch of entering the Hamptons area toward Montauk.” The partnership agreed immediately. Unlike Amagansett, the new space offered year-round operation, plus private party space, a late-night cocktail bar, and room to expand the menu.

Paul DeAngelis, the back-of-house expert with more than four decades at the Lobster Roll, oversaw a complete kitchen renovation. Consequently, the new setup now allows for expanded offerings: three-pound lobsters, grab-and-go options like his famous seafood chili, and shippable lobster kits. Furthermore, the Southampton location serves as the brand’s flagship, with a cocktail program featuring Basil Hayden Manhattans and Belvedere Cosmopolitans alongside wines from Wölffer Estate and Hampton Water.

The Amagansett motto has always been, “This is where summer begins.” By contrast, Southampton introduced a new tagline: “This is where summer never ends.”

Paul DeAngelis and the Kitchen

Four Decades of Consistency

Paul DeAngelis joined the Lobster Roll in 1981, three years after Andrea Anthony, and he has been there ever since—more than four decades in the same kitchen. Essentially, he functions as the culinary backbone of the operation, maintaining consistency across millions of lobster rolls while developing new menu items that reflect evolving customer tastes.

Signature Creations

His signature creation is Paul’s Famous Seafood Chili, a spicy blend of shrimp, lobster, scallops, and beans that has become a menu staple. “I’ve always felt like there was a void in the world of chili,” he has explained. “After trial and error and many batches, the Seafood Chili was created. It’s well balanced, with the right amount of seafood for each spoonful. It’s perfect for a chilly day here on the East End.”

The Classic Lobster Roll

The lobster roll itself follows the same recipe used for six decades: 100% pure cold-water lobster meat mixed with mayonnaise and just enough celery for texture, served cold on a hot toasted split-top bun with a quarter-pound of homemade creamy coleslaw. Importantly, there are no imitation seafood products, no fillers, no preservatives, and no artificial flavorings.

Alternatively, the hot lobster roll offers tasty chunks of claw and knuckle meat served in drawn butter—the traditional New England style. Currently, prices hover around $34 for the cold version and $35 for the hot, which remains competitive with the market rate for quality lobster rolls across the Hamptons.

Beyond the Namesake Sandwich

The menu extends across the full range of casual seafood, including clam chowder in both New England (creamy) and Manhattan (tomato-based) styles, plus fried calamari, clams casino, steamers, mussels, fish and chips, and crab cakes. Most notably, the cult-favorite puffers—boneless blowfish fried in tempura batter—are served with remoulade sauce.

In addition, the restaurant offers an extensive children’s menu, gluten-free options including homemade cupcakes, and plant-based alternatives like the Impossible Burger. Meanwhile, a full bar serves local beer, wine, spirits, frozen cocktails, and fruit smoothies. Finally, Andrea’s Obsession desserts round out the offerings, with her homemade pies and famous cupcakes earning their own devoted following.

The Space: Nostalgia as Design Philosophy

The Roadside Aesthetic

The Lobster Roll’s physical space embodies what Andrea Anthony calls “a nostalgic roadside shack” aesthetic: the red, white, and blue awning, the picnic tables beneath, the wisteria arbor and summer flower gardens, with beach balls and umbrellas scattered throughout the outdoor seating area. Inside, the vibe is “retro and woody with a classic East End nautical” atmosphere, while the music skews to the fifties, sixties, and seventies—oldies that reinforce the time-capsule quality.

Strategic Nostalgia

“The atmosphere of a restaurant is just as important as the food,” Anthony has said. “We have embraced that 1960s vibe because we want to keep this retro feeling. Nostalgia, after all, brings people to a place of comfort.” Crucially, the design philosophy isn’t accidental or purely aesthetic—it’s strategic. “We’ve been referred to as the ‘quintessential summer restaurant,'” she explains. “Embracing that, we say ‘this is where summer never ends.'”

The Iconic Sign

The LUNCH sign itself has become iconic—the most photographed element of the property and the visual shorthand that signals something worth stopping for. Originally, the sign dated back to the Spee family’s luncheonette operation, and the Terrys retained it when they purchased the property in 1965. Since then, it has become the restaurant’s unofficial name.

Consequently, locals and regulars call the place “Lunch” as often as they call it “The Lobster Roll.” The brand has capitalized on this, selling merchandise including long-sleeve and short-sleeve T-shirts, zip hoodies, and snapback caps—all featuring the iconic logo.

The Customer Base: Locals, Tourists, Celebrities

Three Distinct Segments

The Lobster Roll attracts what Andrea Anthony describes as three distinct customer segments. During peak summer season, the Amagansett location serves primarily vacationers—people staying in East End homes, area motels, or visiting friends and relatives. Conversely, during the shoulder seasons, the customer base shifts to locals and day-trippers making the drive from points west. Year-round, the Southampton location draws mostly locals from the surrounding area.

Celebrity Appeal

Celebrities have always been part of the mix, though specific names are rarely dropped. The restaurant’s promotional materials simply reference its appeal to “locals, vacationers, and celebrities alike.” Certainly, The Affair’s production brought increased attention from the entertainment industry, and various magazine shoots and brand campaigns have used the location over the years. For instance, Rachael Ray featured the restaurant on her show $40 a Day, highlighting the lobster roll and grilled crab cake.

Yet the Lobster Roll’s relationship with celebrity has always been understated. Rather than catering to exclusivity or velvet ropes, it offers the opposite: the fantasy of the perfect summer, democratically available to anyone who can find a parking spot and wait for a table. The sign doesn’t say “exclusive.” It says “LUNCH.”

Hours and Operations

The Amagansett location operates seasonally, typically opening in late April or early May and closing in October. Currently, hours run Wednesday through Monday (closed Tuesdays), with service from roughly 11:45 AM to 9:00 PM, though hours vary by day and season. Meanwhile, the Southampton location operates year-round, focusing on dinner service and the late-night cocktail crowd.

Because the restaurant doesn’t take reservations at Amagansett, crowds and wait times define the summer experience. “Get there before 12 because the place fills up quickly,” advises one longtime customer. Additionally, parking can be challenging—a limited number of spaces exists in the lot, with overflow parking along the highway shoulder. However, for those staying nearby in Napeague’s beach communities, the restaurant is within walking distance.

What Sixty Years Teaches

Industry Predictions

Fred Terry once offered his analysis of where the restaurant industry was heading. “Full-service operations have become much more difficult to operate,” he said in a 2011 interview. “Essentially, full-service restaurants will either move toward gourmet food—high-end, expensive dining—or toward TGI Friday’s, Applebee’s, value-oriented dining. The people in the middle will likely disappear.”

Refusing the Binary

The Lobster Roll has survived by refusing that binary choice. On one hand, it’s not high-end—there are no white tablecloths, no tasting menus, no sommeliers. On the other hand, it’s not value dining either, with lobster rolls running $34 and up and a family lunch easily approaching three figures.

Instead, what it offers is authenticity—or at least the careful construction of what authenticity feels like. The nostalgia is intentional, the aesthetic is strategic, and the consistency is relentless. Notably, the lobster salad recipe hasn’t changed in sixty years, nor has the sign changed since the fifties. Similarly, the ownership structure has remained remarkably stable across decades, with the same core partners building incrementally rather than cashing out.

The Original

“What is most unique about our brand,” Andrea Anthony has said, “is that The Lobster Roll was originated in our Amagansett location when it was a little shack on the side of the road in 1965. We popularized the Lobster Roll throughout the decades, and it was then adapted by a plethora of chefs and restaurants. But one thing will never change: we are the original Lobster Roll in the New York Metro area. The masses associate ‘The Lobster Roll’ with our brand. That is our history. It cannot be replicated.”

Indeed, history can’t be replicated—but it can be maintained. And the Lobster Roll has been doing exactly that for sixty years, one toasted split-top bun at a time.

Essential Information

The Lobster Roll (LUNCH) – Amagansett
1980 Montauk Highway, Amagansett, NY 11930
(631) 267-3740
lobsterroll.com

The Lobster Roll – Southampton
32 Montauk Highway, Southampton, NY
(631) 267-3740
Year-round operation

Hours (Amagansett, seasonal):
Wednesday–Monday: approximately 11:45 AM – 9:00 PM
Closed Tuesdays
Season typically runs late April through October

Price Range:
Cold Classic Lobster Roll: $34
Hot Lobster Roll: $35
Appetizers: $12–$18
Entrees: $20–$40

Reservations: Not accepted at Amagansett location

Parking: Limited lot; overflow on highway shoulder

What to Order: The Cold Classic Lobster Roll with coleslaw; Paul’s Famous Seafood Chili; Puffers (fried blowfish); New England Clam Chowder; Andrea’s homemade cupcakes

The Insider Move: Arrive before noon on weekdays to beat the lunch rush. Then order the lobster bisque alongside your roll—a hearty blend of lobster, shrimp, and scallops with a touch of sherry. Afterward, save room for strawberry rhubarb pie with cinnamon ice cream.