How good does a lobster roll have to be to be worth $45?
That’s the question I found myself considering at SeaFare, the seafood pop-up that has taken over the former Dixon Roadside space on Tinker Street in Woodstock. Forty-five dollars is a considerable sum for a sandwich, even one filled with lobster. It’s enough to make a person pause over the menu, do some mental arithmetic, and then, in the interests of journalism, order two.
SeaFare’s rolls come in three styles, each with a quarter-pound of lobster meat and a choice of two sides. The Maine roll is dressed with lemon mayo, chive, and dill on a toasted potato roll; the Rhode Island version comes with butter and lemon on a grilled split-top bun; and the Connecticut roll arrives with herbed garlic butter on open-faced ciabatta garlic bread. Each is $45 for a single, or $75 for a double.
My dining companion and I tried the Maine and Rhode Island rolls. Both were very tasty, with generous pieces of lobster. Of the sides we sampled, the fried potato wedges made the strongest impression. The question of value remained a little harder to settle: This was an enjoyable meal, and also an expensive one.
A look at other regional menus puts SeaFare toward the higher end. Red’s Restaurant in Coxsackie lists a lobster roll with three ounces of meat for $32.99; Mariner’s Harbor in Kingston lists one for $34. At Hutton Brickyards’ River Pavilion, now closed for the season, the lobster roll with house chips was $36 this summer. Portions and accompaniments vary, but the comparison gives a sense of the local market.
SeaFare owner Heather Ransley knows her prices get attention. “The price point is high. Quality seafood is at a premium,” she says. She has gotten some pushback from customers, though she believes her prices are in line with what diners would pay in Maine.
For Ransley, the lobster itself is central to the calculation. A devoted seafood eater who often vacationed in Maine and New England, she wondered why lobster tasted so much better near the coast than it did when she ordered it closer to home. Last summer, she traveled to Maine in search of a supplier and learned about an approach known as high-pressure processing, or HPP.
The process uses pressure to separate raw lobster meat from its shell without cooking it. Ransley was persuaded by the flavor and texture of the cold-cracked meat she sampled. She now gets her lobster from Shucks in Gardiner, Maine, which processes it within days of its being trapped. Ransley makes the case that the method preserves the plump sweetness she associates with lobster eaten on the Maine coast.
Ransley’s enthusiasm for the subject is infectious. On my visit, she worked the dining room with a warmth that made it easy to imagine her doing this for years—which she has. She grew up in Bedford Hills and spent much of her adult life in coastal places, including Hawaii, before working in Chicago. Ransley’s hospitality career took her from front-of-house work to becoming a sommelier and restaurant manager. She was working at Cindy’s Rooftop at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel when the pandemic put her job on hiatus in 2020.
Ransley came to West Saugerties, where her family had a house, and decided to stay. For the past five years, she has worked in post-production accounting for feature films, a change from hospitality. But her restaurant instincts persisted. “I can’t go into a restaurant without examining everything,” she says.
Ransley also kept thinking about what she wanted to eat. There were restaurants in the region serving good seafood dishes, she says, but she longed for a menu with five or six seafood options at its center. When a film she expected to work on this fall wasn’t greenlit, she found herself with time to try out the idea.
The former Dixon Roadside, at 261 Tinker Street, offered a short-term home. A Thai street-food pop-up had occupied the space over the summer, and Ransley began talking with the landlord about what might come next. A temporary arrangement suited her: After watching the pandemic devastate restaurants and colleagues, she was wary of making a long-term commitment.
“I am terrified of going into the restaurant business full time,” she says. The pop-up lets her test the concept, change the menu, and see whether customers respond.
The large, barnlike dining room retains the look of Dixon Roadside. When there are only a few tables occupied, the scale of the place can feel a little overwhelming. Ransley’s easy manner helps make the room feel more personal.
She is careful to distinguish her role from that of a trained chef. The recipes are hers, but she hired Joseph DeBella, an experienced sous chef, to prepare them. DeBella has also brought his experience with stocks and sauces to the menu, particularly the soups and chowders. Ransley handles ordering and inventory and spends several hours a day in the kitchen.
There’s plenty on the menu for diners who don’t want to make the $45 lobster-roll commitment. Judy’s clam dip ($10), made with littleneck and ocean clams, sour cream, cream cheese, and chives, is a delight. It’s so thick that the house-made potato chips tend to break under the strain; a fork may be necessary.
The New England-style seafood chowder ($12/$22), with shrimp, halibut, and house-made croutons, was another highlight. The poblano and corn chowder ($14/$26) had plenty of scallops, though I would have liked the poblano to make a stronger showing. Other soups on the menu last week included lobster chowder with sherry, tomato, and cream ($16/$30), and seafood gumbo with lobster, scallop, halibut, okra, and peppers ($15/$28).
For a more direct encounter with the lobster, there’s the lazy lobster dinner ($59): six to seven ounces of tail, claw, and knuckle meat poached in butter and served with sides. The menu also listed pan-roasted Maine dayboat halibut ($42) with herb and garlic butter, saffron-lemon rice, and a green salad. Dishes change from week to week, and Ransley says she orders with the expectation that some items will sell out.
SeaFare is BYOB, a welcome detail for anyone calculating the total cost of a lobster dinner. Ransley keeps glasses chilled for guests who bring their own drinks.
When we spoke, she expected to operate at Dixon Roadside through November 16, possibly longer. The cost of heating the large space through the winter is one consideration; if the concept takes off, she may look for a smaller home for SeaFare in the area. For now, the experiment continues, and some of the first customers have become regulars. “The people that have come in have kept coming back,” she says.
As for the lobster roll, SeaFare makes a persuasive case for its quality. Whether that makes it a $45 sandwich is a decision each diner will have to make.
SeaFare, at 261 Tinker Street in Woodstock is open Thursday to Sunday from noon until they sell out. The pop-up is BYOB.
