The Lobster Roll War

Tom Shaw stood in his empty parking lot, befuddled yet again by what he saw on the other side of the highway. It was 11:15 a.m. and already people were lining up alongside the hut that sold the same thing he sold, lobster rolls. Fred’s Hut was busy every day, even during off hours.

 Tom’s younger brother, Jimmy, who helped out Tuesdays and Thursdays, came out from behind the kitchen window where they took food and drink orders and stood next to his older brother. They could have been twins, both six feet tall, heads shaved and sporting bushy mustaches.

 “Fred’s Hut. My God, look at it will you? That hut looks more like an abandoned tool shed. It’s been years since he painted that dump.” More people joined the line. When Fred’s opened, the line would move slowly. People at the end of the line would wait two hours just to put their orders in, mostly for lobster rolls and fries.

 “Why do you do this to yourself every morning?” Jimmy asked.

 Shaw surveyed his empty parking lot, thinking about all the fresh lobster he’d bought that morning. “I don’t understand it. I mean…”

 “You’ve done plenty of blind taste tests, let your customers try your rolls and Fred’s.” Having heard it so many times, Jimmy finished his brother’s sentence. Customers chose his lobster rolls almost as often as Fred’s. Still, people loved Fred’s Hut.

 The men watched the line grow longer still. Shaw knew that eventually, a few people, hungry, and tired of shifting their weight from one foot to the other, would walk across the highway and give his place a try. That, and his bait shop, kept him in business, but barely.  

 “Tom, you know it’s hard to fight an institution. Fred’s Hut’s been here since 1954, more than sixty years. You opened your place just seven years ago. It’s a word of mouth sort of thing. Face it, Fred’s Hut is a tourist destination.”

 Shaw’s eyes narrowed and his shoulders sagged a bit. “I just want one day with lines like that.” he said. “No, a week. If I could get a week like that, I swear I’d close this place up and move to Florida.”

 “Yeah, but how’s that ever gonna happen?” Jimmy asked. “Remember when you put up that banner announcing your prices were 50% lower than Fred’s?”

 “Sure, how could I forget? We got a lot of customers that day.”

 Jimmy nodded. “That’s right and the next day Fred’s had a banner.”

 “You get what you pay for,” Shaw said. The men managed to squeeze out a laugh.

 “Then there was the time you sent me over there with samples, nice chunks of lobster with sweet butter,” Jimmy said.

 Shaw reached for his cigarettes but thought better of it. “That one sent Fred Jr. up the wall, didn’t it? Remember how he actually came out of that damn hut and walked behind you? What did he say?”

 “He handed out free cups of lemonade and said, “Use this to wash that bad taste out of your mouth,” Jimmy said. “That was bad enough, but then he told his customers, ‘Now you know why you’re standing in line.’”  

 “I hate the little bastard,” Shaw said.

 A Jeep pulled up and four teenagers jumped out. Jimmy went back inside to the kitchen window to take their orders. When he saw the boys had paid for their food and drinks, Shaw walked over to them. “Good to see you boys. If you don’t mind my asking, why’d you come here instead of Fred’s?”

 The boys looked across the street at the long, slow moving line. One of them, a tall redheaded kid said, “I guess we don’t like to follow the crowd. We like to do our own thing.”

 The next morning just as the line was forming at Fred’s Hut, Tom Shaw unfurled a huge, new banner. “Don’t follow the crowd! Do your own thing at Shaw’s Lobster Rolls.”

 The line at Fred’s was especially long that day. Three days later, Shaw’s closed its doors for good.