Fresh Lobster in Downeast Maine?

April 13, 2009 8:27 AM

Getting ready for summer: What are the best places to get Lobster north/east of Acadia National Park/Bar Harbor? Looking especially for lobster pounds or fresh from the dock.

Specifically: The Schoodic/Gouldsboro area. NOTE: Not interested in driving into Bar Harbor if I can help it.

posted by Any Moose In a Storm to Food & Drink (5 answers total)

We used to love Tidal Falls Restaurant, but heard about a month ago that they're not opening this season for the first time in decades. It was such a great place to get a fresh lobster. You could sit at their picnic tables, watch the tide go in/out, and watch the seals and seabirds.

There are quite a few places near Winter Harbor (the town you pass through right before the Schoodic Peninsula) that serve a fresh, steamed lobster - but I've not noticed many that have that seaside atmosphere you probably want.

Most of the lobster pounds we enjoy are down on MDI (near Bar Harbor) - we especially like Thurston's and Abel's.
posted by MorningPerson at 8:53 AM on April 13, 2009

Near Acadia National Park is the small town of Southwest Harbor, which has the best lobster coop I've ever been to in Maine.
posted by egeanin at 9:34 AM on April 13, 2009

This may be further from Schoodic/Gouldsboro than you'd like and closer to Bar Harbor, but when I was in Maine last summer, I had delicious lobster at the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound on Route 3 in Trenton (on the road to Bar Harbor, but just before the bridge to MDI.)
posted by andrewraff at 11:16 AM on April 13, 2009

Response by poster: Where I'm staying Google Maps estimates it's about well over an hour to Bar Harbor (but only 35 min to Trenton) so I was trying to avoid driving onto Mt. Desert Island if I could.
posted by Any Moose In a Storm at 11:47 AM on April 13, 2009

Honestly, if you're going for standard steamers, and plain old lobstah and buttah, it doesn't much matter where you go. Any pound that can't boil a lobster, melt butter, and pass out plastic napkin-bibs probably isn't in business anymore.

If you're looking for something more upscale, that's another story.
posted by mbatch at 2:40 PM on April 13, 2009