From the bottom of the ocean to the menu

While the restaurant is the most visible part of New England Lobster & Market, the business is actually a vertically integrated operation with four distinct entities: wholesale, restaurant, retail and a growing catering arm. 

“We call it ‘from the crate to the plate’ concept,” Marc said.

The business began in 1987 as a wholesale distributor of live Maine lobster, with Marc driving around in his pickup delivering to restaurants from Napa to Monterey Bay. Within a few years, New England Lobster expanded to a retail counter offering live, cooked and frozen seafood to the general public.

Intermittent supply shortages, especially during certain times of the year, were a vexing problem until the Worralls purchased a Nova Scotia company in 2005 to ensure fresh lobster year-round. Customers at the restaurant can watch live feeds of crews harvesting in the waters of the Atlantic, and the lobster is then flown in fresh to New England Lobster’s Burlingame, California, warehouse every day.

The restaurant opened a few years later, after a trial food truck serving lobster corn chowder and crab and lobster rolls proved wildly successful. The wholesale business continues to thrive as well. On any given day, New England Lobster can have as much as 10,000 pounds of live lobster in transit to restaurants, supermarkets, hotels, cruise lines, wholesalers and other customers in the western U.S. and Hawaii.

“Sometimes I have to pinch myself,” Marc said. “I started out selling lobster out of the back of a pickup truck, and to go from that to seeing a line out the door of the restaurant on a Saturday afternoon is amazing.”

The Worralls have been U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management customers for nearly 20 years, a relationship that began through Marc’s family investment advisor. The Worralls switched their business banking account to U.S. Bank in 2017 after wanting more of a “personal touch” to their banking relationship than they were getting from their bank at the time, Marc said.

U.S. Bank “is very personal – when we walk into the branch down the street it’s not like some stranger is taking our money; everyone knows who we are,” he said. His previous bank directed him to call a toll-free line if he had an issue, he said, but “with U.S. Bank if we have any issue someone we know is right on top of it until it gets resolved.”

The Worralls’ introduction to U.S. Bank came in 2010, when Marc accompanied his mother on a visit to meet Dave Ellis, a wealth management advisor with U.S. Bancorp Advisors, a registered investment advisor and affiliate of U.S. Bank, in the San Mateo, California, location. Marc soon became a personal wealth client himself, and over time Ellis and his team have worked closely with Sue and the couple’s children.

“Our wealth management team has gotten to know the family really well and they trust us, and we do everything we can  to try to make everything easy for them,” Ellis said.

That trust translated into the Worralls moving their business banking relationship as well over to U.S. Bank about eight years ago. Jennifer Brill, business banking relationship manager at U.S. Bank, manages all aspects of the company’s business banking needs, including comprehensive treasury management services and customized financial solutions.

“By streamlining their day-to-day banking operations and anticipating their needs, we’ve aimed to help create true convenience to save New England Lobster valuable time and reduce their administrative burden,” Brill said. “Our goal is providing consistent, high-touch service and prompt, proactive communication that allows them to focus on growing their business.”

Several of the employees at New England Lobster have been with the business for nearly three decades, and the Worralls consider their employees to be family.

“Every day in this business is different. It’s a challenge to get lobsters from the bottom of the ocean and put them on the menu,” Marc said. “We like to model for our employees – we have to be here, and we have to work, but there’s no reason we can’t have fun.”