“At the Lobster Claw Restaurant, great dining by the sea, at the Lobster Claw Restaurant, we’re one big family!” That catchy radio jingle captures, perhaps whimsically, the essence of the iconic seafood restaurant off Route 6A in Orleans.
For fifty-one years, Don and Marylou Berig owned and operated the award-winning Lobster Claw Restaurant, a “true Cape Cod tradition,” and staple of dining on Cape Cod for year-round residents and visitors.
At the beginning, the restaurant only had one dining room where reheated frozen fish was served on paper plates. When the Berig’s took the reins, they promptly opted for using fresh fish and real dishware, the former due to their familiarity with the fish business.
The menu certainly evolved, with namesake lobsters literally at the center. The menu promoted Broiled Lobster, Lobster Newburg, Deep Fried Lobster and Baked Stuffed Lobster. They also offered an early bird special with complimentary chowder and dessert with selection of an entrée.
Like in most restaurants, a typical day began at 6:30 a.m., cleaning and setting up the dining room. By 7:30 am, deliveries arrived, some included over 100 pounds of fish, which Don cut up himself, which he had been doing since age 12. The lunch crowed arrived at 11:30 am and night owls closed down the place around 9:30 pm. Though, the Berigs were known to stay open if someone called and said they were on their way.
From Route 6A, the red exterior of the barn-shaped structure was hard to miss. Once inside, the nautically-themed interior dining rooms where fishing nets hang from the ceiling was hard to forget.
Don and Marylou were the cooks, cleaners, accountants and faces of the Lobster Claw Restaurant. But three generations of Berigs worked at the restaurant over the half-century. One hostess was employed at the restaurant for half a century. There were also more than a dozen workers from Jamaica who worked at the restaurant for years.
At its peak, the 6,695-square foot restaurant had three dining rooms downstairs and the Surfboat Lounge upstairs. Normally 221 can be seated downstairs and 67 upstairs. In its heyday, the restaurant fed 500 people a day.
When Hurricane Bob hit the Cape in August 1991, the Lobster Claw was the only restaurant open in seven towns. The Lobster Claw staff ended up feeding 800 people over the course of a few days.
Some of the Lobster Claw accolades include “Best Family Restaurant,” “Best Lobster Roll” and “Best Clam Chowder” from Cape Cod Life Publications between 1994 and 2018. The restaurant also won “Best Fried Clams” in 2010 from Best of Boston.
Don credits the success of the restaurant to three things: cleanliness and décor, excellent food, and great employees. Berig was a self-described people person – and old school. Don was a natural tending bar, behind the boat-shaped bar, serving up Dewar’s Scotch, a favorite with the older crowd.
In his reflections at retirement, Don never felt running the restaurant was a job in the negative sense. “Exhaustion, surely,” he admitted. Running the restaurant was his life’s work; a labor of love.
The Lobster Claw closed its doors on September 13, 2020. A medical center is expected to occupy the building.
Apparently my internal alarm clock is set to the radio frequency range of 
If you like 
In this day and age, the fact that this 
This is a 
While this jingle may make you think twice about how your home is furnished, it’s a cozy little number:
Not terribly creative, but hey, singing three words still counts as a jingle in my book:
Clearly leading the pack, it’s hard not to 
As a 9-year-old, I can attest that 
I dare someone to listen to both this jingle and their recent ad about how air conditioning saves you money, and not give them a call:
This cheery jingle would be on the same level of the Lobster Claw except for one huge problem; I have not heard it on the airwaves since the spring. Bring it back!:
But the ultimate jingle is none other than the aforementioned classic, former Thompson’s Clam Bar. This one is personal for me. As a kid in the 1980s, with a birthday on August 30th, and at a time when kids went back to school after Labor Day, I spent many birthdays not just on the Cape, but at Thompson’s Clam Bar.