“Famous for its Sea Food since 1919.”
The Lobster Restaurant
1919–1972
Seafood
Alternate Names:
The Lobster Oyster & Chop House (c. 1959–1972)
Lobster House (c. 1953)
Ownership:
Myron “Mike” Linz & Stanley “Stan” Fuchs (1952–1972)
Max Fuchs (1920–1953) & Simon Linz (1920–1949)
Location:
145 West 45th Street (c.1920–1972)
156 West 45th Street (1919–c.1920)
Literature:
Ved Mehta, Remembering Mr. Shawn’s New Yorker: The Invisible Art of Editing (Continents of Exile, 9) (1998)
Publications:
Gragnani, Vincent. “Lost Restaurants of NYC: The Lobster.” I Happen to Like New York. Blog, November 17, 2014 (illustrated). [Includes images of matchbook and postcard.]
Gold Levi, Vicki, and Steven Heller. Times Square Style: Graphics from the Great White Way. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004: 126 (illustrated). [Features image of an ash tray from The Lobster.]
Harris, Richard. “A Reporter at Large: Closed.” New Yorker, December 30, 1972: 40-46. [Features a drawing of The Lobster by illustrator Tom Funk on p. 40. Fuchs, Linz, and other employees discuss the reasons for the restaurant’s closure, including union negotiations, the decline of the area around Times Square, changing fashions, bad decor, the automobile, and even the jet plane.]
Sokolov, Raymond A. “When Freshness Counts the Most: Seafood Guide.” New York Times, May 11, 1972: 52.
“Max Fuchs, 78, Restaurateur.” New York Herald Tribune, January 16, 1958: 10.
McGovern, Isabel A. “Cooked Sea Food to Take Home.” New York Herald Tribune, March 21, 1953: 9. [Regarding the inauguration of The Lobster’s novel take-out seafood business, with the slogan ‘Dine Out at Home.]
“Simon Linz; Helped Found Chop House.” New York Herald Tribune, November 4, 1952: 27.
“Meatless Days to Begin Today in a Few Restaurants in the City.” New York Herald Tribune, October 9, 1942: 21.
James, Rian. Dining in New York. New York: John Day Company, 1930: 60-62.
“There are a thousand sea-food restaurants in New York; there are a few good ones; but there is no other like The Lobster, and that’s saying something!” (61).
Notable Guests:
A. J. Liebling (Journalist):
“When we walked into the restaurant—as unpretentious as our offices—Joe [Liebling] was greeted by the manager as if he were a dignitary, and we were shown to a big table in the back of the main dining room. No sooner had we settled down than the manager said, ‘I’m very sorry, Mr. Liebling, but I just can’t come up with five dozen oysters today. Will four dozen do?'” (1)
Ved Mehta (Writer)
Joseph Mitchell (Writer): “Joe Mitchell, the office authority on fish and everything to do with fish, thought that the Lobster, as it was generally known, was one of the top fish houses in the city.” (2)
Mimi Sheraton (Food Critic)
Notes:
Fuchs worked as captain of waiters at Lüchow’s after arriving in America from Czechoslovakia. (3)
Decorations included—alongside “huge, mounted lobsters and fish of all descriptions”—original drawings by cartoonists Fay King and Harry Hershfield. (4)
In 1985 the restaurant space was taken over by a branch of TriBeCa’s Hamburger Harry’s. (5) Gladys’s Comedy Room moved into the building’s basement, which may have been the location of the room called “The Cave” (see postcard link below). Both Hamburger Harry’s and Gladys’s existed at 145 West 45th Street until at least the early 2000s. At some point O’Lunney’s Times Square Pub, an establishment founded in 1968 on a nearby street, moved in, but closed during due to pandemic-related lockdowns in 2020. The space currently houses the Museum of Broadway.
The Museum of the City of New York holds an early postcard from The Lobster (accession # F2011.33.1773).
Related Restaurants:
Lüchow’s (Max Fuchs, see Notes above).
Menu:
1959 (WorthPoint)
(1) Mehta, Ved. Remembering Mr. Shawn’s New Yorker: The Invisible Art of Editing (Continents of Exile, 9). Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 1998: 104.
(2) ibid.: 104.
(3) Gragnani, 2014.
(4) James, 1930: 61.
(5) Miller, Bryan. “Diner’s Journal.” New York Times, August 30, 1985: C18.
Cover photo: Matchbook. Ebay. Accessed November 23, 2023.
The New York City Restaurant Archive 