There’s a lobster food truck parked near a pot store and a teenage girl dancing in lobster costume on a rural stretch of Hwy 525 on Whidbey Island.
Move over, Dungeness Crab. The lobster is the linchpin of the crustaceans in this corner.
On the Rock Lobster recently started selling sandwiches alongside Whidbey Island Cannabis.
“It’s kind of a lobster trap, if you will. Or a pot of lobster, ”food truck mastermind Tyler“ Chuck ”Norris said. “You can take your snacks and your meds and enjoy them both in the comfort of your home.”
A lobster roll is a classic New England comforting sandwich. East Coast McDonald’s even offers a summer McLobster.
The cold lobster meat is mixed with celery, chives, lemon and mayonnaise and served on a hot toast. No shells to break. No bib required.
Tyler Norris, 27, a former South Whidbey High School football player, came up with the idea at the University of San Diego. He and friends in Maine made a killing selling lobster tacos at festivals in California. He launched Soulr, a solar-powered mobile food cart, and appeared on Oxygen’s “Quit Your Day Job” show about aspiring millennial entrepreneurs.
After returning to Whid-bey, he concocted a plan with his father, a famous scavenger showman on the island.
John “Fish-On” Norris, 60, turns old sewing machines into tractors as an art. As a “gatherer” he found a human skull and a cannon in abandoned storage lockers. Fish-On-John won the crown in the rootin’-tootin ‘Mr. South Whidbey from last summer.
The duo’s first lobster concert was a booth at the 2019 Island County Fair, where the dad is a bouncer at the beer garden, another talent. This year’s fair has been canceled due to COVID-19.
No problem. John Norris had a 1965 13ft Silver Streak Saber trailer ready for a food truck. Tyler’s Soulr cooler keeps the mix cool.
Leyrae Fontenot, 17, is the girl in the lobster costume and clip-on headband.
“A lot of people are waving at me and honking their horns,” Leyrae said. “Kids love the lobster costume, so I dance for them. I floss my teeth.
Flossing is a dance movement with repeated swinging of the arms, back to front. Like dental floss, but with your body.
When she’s not shaken by customers, she works at the window.
The recipe uses chunks of claw and shank lobster that are shipped weekly from Maine, just like the buns.
The classic 6-inch roll, $ 18, is the basic spread. The Rico Roll, $ 21, adds avocado and chipotle aioli. The $ 20 Whidbey Roll comes with Beecher’s Mac & Cheese.
Adding $ 5 for Boston cream pie, tax and tip, and lunch for two at a picnic table will set you back $ 60.
“A lot of people say it’s expensive, but it’s like, ‘Dude, that’s lobster,’” Tyler said.
It’s hard to believe that in colonial times, prisoners and slaves were fed lobster because it was plentiful and cheap. The settlers nicknamed the lobsters the “cockroaches of the sea”.
The food truck attracts tourists and ferry traffic. A dancing lobster is hard to miss.
One recent afternoon, a group of motorcyclists packed a picnic table and an elderly couple sat down at another. Others were awaiting orders.
The parking lot is shared by the customers of the pottery shop and the food truck. Some hit both places.
Leyrae dances by the side of the road in her lobster costume for a few hours.
“Time goes slowly towards the end a bit. But that’s OK. It’s perfect. I’m really well paid, ”she says.
Leyrae believed that the summer before her last year of high school would be spent “cleaning houses for random people, right here and there.”
Now she has a status.
“They call me ‘Lobster Girl’,” she said.
She hopes to be a language interpreter. “I want to learn Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, ASL, maybe a little Arabic.”
Now she’s talking crustacean.
How does a person get a gig like this?
“I just came for a lobster roll and my best friend got a job. I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’ He said, ‘Do you want a job too? You can be a mascot. I thought to myself, “I would love to do that. So now my best friend and I are working together. He’s over there toasting buns, ”she said.
“This is one of the best jobs I have ever had.”
The food truck is open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursday to Monday.
• Andrea Brown can be contacted at [email protected] or by calling 425-339-3443.