Posted by Michael Stern on July 16, 2008
Red's is a real lobster shack, a building about the size of a small house trailer with a single window where you both place your order and then get it when it's ready. Opened in Boothbay in 1938, it moved to the north end of Wiscasset in 1954, and it has since become a summertime legend. Many people believe that here is the best lobster roll anywhere: Heaps of meat from at least one whole one-pound lobster is extracted in great hunks and piled into a toasted split-top bun that is accompanied by a cup of drawn butter or, if you wish, mayonnaise to garnish it. It is lobster-eater's nirvana.
"Look how beautiful!" says the waitress when she presents ours through the window on its picnic tray. Her enthusiasm is that of someone who has never seen one of these amazing sandwiches ever before. In fact, she is dishing out dozens, probably hundreds on this pleasant summer day. Crowds of people line up for lobster rolls at Red's so that the wait just to get to the window can be up to an hour.
Once you receive your food – the large menu also contains fried seafood of all kinds, burgers, onion rings, French fries, and Round Top ice cream – you carry it to one of the plastic tables in back of the restaurant and dine in the sun alongside Route One.
Lobster roll prices vary according to the market. When we stopped by in June, 2005, the cost was $14 per roll.
Overall: Worth driving from anyplace
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Reviewers "Must Eats" List
"Red's boasts that each lobster roll contains all the meat from a one-pound lobster, and then some. Rolls are served with melted butter (or mayo) on the side for you to drizzle on as desired."
Michael Stern
"Lobster doesn't come any tastier than what they serve at Red's Eats. Somewhere underneath all the meat is a perfectly toasted bun."
buffetbuster
"Amazingly, no matter how long the line waiting to place orders up front, there always seem to be available seats at the picnic tables in back."
Michael Stern
"You will easily spend as much for a meal at this ultra-casual roadside stand as you would in a nice restaurant; but no "nice" restaurant we know has a lobster roll as good as Red's."
Michael Stern
"Here I am in the middle of landlocked Nebraska, 2000 miles from Wiscasset, wishing I could order a lobster roll from Red's. Charles Kuralt once did a program on Red's back when he had his "On the Road" TV show."
tunerman
