A Long Island restaurant owner was surprised to see a giant crustacean delivered at his lobster bar. Ironically, he refused to cook or sell it.
The lobster weighed about 23 pounds and is five years short of a century old.
According to Jordan Lobster Farms owner Stephen Jordan, one of the restaurant's fishermen, John Price, shipped in the 95-year-old lobster from the Bay of Fundy. They expected to open a crate of the day's shellfish ration, but they weren't told that inside was a 23-pound grandpa lobster.
"[John Price] said 'look in the crate.' We opened it up and we were like woah!'" said Jordan.
Erika Opena, an employee at the restaurant, said that you would have to use your whole body weight just to lift the lobster up. "So that's crazy," she added.
A resident of Long Beach, Brittney Beigel, said she has heard of enormous lobsters but has not seen one up until that point. To her, it was "a real treat."
A real treat it would have been to dig in to the giant lobster for dinner, but Jordan chose to keep it as an attraction rather than an appetizer. He will be donating the gigantic shellfish to the Long Island Aquarium.
In the meantime, customers at the Jordan Lobster Farms are flocking the restaurant not to eat but see the lobster and have their pictures taken with it.
With regular diners and restaurant owners paying a visit to his retail and wholesale business for lobsters that weigh around 5 to 10 pounds, Jordan isn't a newbie to large lobsters. The last enormous lobster, however, as big as this week's shipment, made its way to Jordan's restaurant almost 10 years ago.
Experts say that the longer a lobster survives, the heavier it can get. Lobsters normally live to be around 70 years old. They can also survive to be around 100 years old, like the one Price shipped to Jordan. These century-old crustaceans are often found at the bottom of the ocean.
The largest and heaviest ever reported catch was that from Nova Scotia in Canada, weighing 44.4 pounds.
