Close your eyes and picture a quintessential summer day in Maine. You’ll probably smell it first: a mouthwatering medley of brine, seaweed, and charcoal. The aroma paints a hazy picture: a white picnic table, a blue sky, and glittering waves. As the image sharpens, you can hear it: purring boats, shrieking seagulls, live music.
Open your eyes. You’re on the Portland Pier at Luke’s Lobster. You might recognize the contemporary, shingle-sided chalet behind you as the company’s flagship restaurant. Its chic form is juxtaposed by scrappy views of the working waterfront, stretching far ahead. You glance down. Remnants of a whole, steamed lobster litter the plate before you. The cracked, crimson shells have been picked clean and arranged in a heap, serving as evidence that you ate well.
Someone bussing tables snags your plate. You assume it’s bound for the nearest trash can.
Since you’re dining at Luke’s Lobster, your assumption is wrong.
“We’re committed to sustainable practices,” says Ben Conniff, Luke’s Lobster co-founder and chief innovation officer. “Luke Holden (Luke’s Lobster founder and chief executive officer) and I encourage consumers to support businesses like ours so that, together, we can steer the seafood industry in a healthy direction.”
Take your plate, for example. Before it was cleared, you might have noticed that it was reusable. “A huge issue in this industry is the amount of trash created with disposable wares, utensils, and packaging,” says Conniff. “Despite being a line of mostly casual, counter-service shacks, we’ve switched to reusable products (including baskets, soup cups, and utensils) for our dine-in orders so that we can reduce what gets tossed in the trash and inevitably winds up in landfills.”
Takeout and delivery wares are getting a similar makeover. “By the end of the year, we aim to have replaced all of our takeout lobster roll sleeves and boxes,” says Conniff. “They used to be plastic-coated paperboard, which doesn’t decompose.”
The new takeout packaging will be fully compostable and made from Maine wood pulp courtesy of Tanbark, a Maine-based maker of sustainable molded fiber products. “In addition to ensuring that the packaging breaks down after use, we’ve drastically reduced the carbon footprint required to make it,” says Conniff.
Speaking of landfills, there is also the matter of food waste—particularly the food waste created by the company’s signature dish. “Most of the weight of a lobster is discarded,” Conniff says, noting that he and Holden have cooked up creative, eco-friendly ways to utilize the inedible bits that typically wind up in the trash. Those leftover shells on your plate? Dried and crushed, they make a fantastic replacement for chemical fertilizer, while proteins from the lobster’s circulatory system can be used to infuse a wide range of skin care products.
“Our next step is to get all our shacks set up with compost haulers so that any waste that does get created becomes a useful soil amendment. About a quarter of our shacks do this today; however, each city is unique in improving waste management,” says Conniff.
With over 30 shack locations in major U.S. cities (including Boston, New York, and Bethesda) and two full-service restaurants, getting everyone on the same page is difficult, especially when considering Luke’s Lobster’s global locations. “Currently, we’re in Japan and Singapore,” Conniff says, noting that the company had a successful pop-up in Seoul earlier this year. “We hope that pop-up leads to shacks in Korea. While we’re not in a rush to grow internationally, when we find dedicated partners willing to immerse themselves in Maine lobster and train hard so they can faithfully and sustainably execute our brand, we’re excited to work with them.”
While Holden and Conniff explore global opportunities, they both keep one eye firmly fixed on the Portland Pier, which is, without a doubt, the company’s beating heart. “Luke’s grandfather and father were both lobstermen in Maine. Jeff (Luke’s father) went on to create the first licensed lobster processing facility in the state,” says Conniff.
After becoming a lobsterman, Luke took a detour that landed him in New York City, but it wasn’t long before he began to miss his Maine roots. “We met on Craigslist,” Conniff says. “Thirty days later, we opened our first shack in the East Village of Manhattan.”
That was in 2009. A decade later, the pair opened their flagship restaurant on the then-crumbling Portland Pier, eager to expand their business and sustainably revive the working waterfront. The recently released Portland Pier five-year impact report outlines just how busy Holden and Conniff have been in the years since. In 2022, the neighboring lobster-buying station was outfitted with new solar panels, installed by Portland-based ReVision Energy. According to the report, those panels have already generated 22 megawatt hours of energy—enough to power an electric vehicle for not one, but three trips around the world.
“We’ve also partnered with Maine Standard Biofuels,” Conniff says, explaining that the oil from the deep fryer has a whole other useful life after it’s filtered and pumped. “They pick up our filtered oil and use it to make everything from biodiesel—which can be used to power trucks and boats, including our lobster boats—to cleaning products and even a lubricant replacement for WD-40.”
These efforts aren’t futile. The report notes that this partnership has diverted 48.2 tons of waste from landfills.
Overall, Conniff emphasizes that doing business sustainably isn’t just a buzzword—it’s also a personal passion, the brand’s mission, and a meaningful, lifelong commitment. “We’re excited about the ability to get sustainable Maine seafood to more people around the country and the globe, and to have more conversations about sustainability and how a business like ours should operate to serve stakeholders. We’re always thinking about how we can all work together in a more connected way so that the way we produce and consume food can continue for generations into the future.”
