In what has to be the most exciting marriage of food and entertainment since the “pick your own Christian” lion feeders of ancient Rome, The Lobster Zone, a combination arcade game and lobster tank, has come to Chicago.
The Lobster Zone is an adaptation of the skill-crane game, in which players try to maneuver a mechanical claw to pick up a stuffed animal or toy. In this iteration, however, customers pay $2 for a chance to snag a live lobster; if the attempt succeeds, the restaurant cooks it, free of charge.
Dick’s Last Resort, on North Pier, unveiled its Lobster Zone game July 7. That’s not enough time to gauge the game’s popularity, but in the Dick’s Last Resort in San Antonio, which has had a Lobster Zone since February, the device has been an unqualified success.
“People love it,” says general manager Richard DeKan. “It gets a lot of play.”
And makes a lot of money.
Advanced Games & Engineering, the Ft. Lauderdale company that makes The Lobster Zone, won’t reveal figures, but some estimate that only 1 out of 17 tries results in a captured lobster. At $2 per attempt, that would mean the restaurant takes in $34 for each “free” lobster dinner — not a bad price for a one-pound crustacean.
Indeed, there are legendary stories of lobster hunters who simply won’t quit — even when the hunt becomes financially ridiculous.
“One guy spent about $180 to catch one lobster,” says DeKan. “It was a Sunday night, and he just kept on playing. The staff had a lot of fun with him.
“And as soon as he won, an off-duty busboy stuck $2 in the machine and won on the first try.”
In Chicago, “some people win on the first try, some take 10 tries,” says Dick’s Last Resort general manager Ralf Boettger. “It depends. But if there’s a group, and one person gets one, everyone else want to win, and they’ll keep trying.”
Indeed, one trio of women tried for a while, unsuccessfully, to land a lobster, went away, and came back a few hours later to try again. Unsuccessfully.
“I knew it was too good to be true,” said a crestfallen Natalie Goe after a failed attempt. “I had three of them at once.”
Her friend, Kris Van Campernolle, hoisted a lobster out of the water, but with a powerful flip of its tail, the lobster kicked free.
“I almost had it,” she said glumly. “I have to get several together next time.”
Actually, that’s a technique almost guaranteed to fail. AG&E president J.R. Fishman says the only way to snare a lobster is to catch one right across the back, in perfect balance. “Otherwise,” Fishman says, “they’ll slip right out.”
Lining up the claw perfectly sounds difficult, and given that lobsters can move and that the water in the tank distorts one’s perception, it is tough. But Julie Reiter, a 17-year-old visitor from Toledo, Ohio, won (with a little coaching from her brother, Rob) on her first attempt.
A gleeful Boettger grabbed a microphone and announced, “We have a murderer — I mean, a winner,” as a dozen or so patrons applauded.
“I don’t even like lobster,” said Reiter, who had, in fact, just finished dinner with her parents. Nevertheless, she sat down to another meal of lobster, corn and fries — though it isn’t certain how much she actually ate.
The whole idea repulses Debbie Leahy, president of Illinois Animal Action.
“That’s demented,” she says. “For lack of a better expression, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
“Even if the lobsters aren’t caught, they’re constantly being harassed, having to get away from this claw. There’s no place to escape. It’s taunting an animal. It’s sad what they’re doing.”
Not surprisingly, animal-rights concerns don’t bother Fishman.
“They think that anything that has anything to do with eating animals is cruel,” he says. “I’m not saying that all their issues aren’t meaningful, but when you get to food-chain issues, most people scoff at that.
“Frankly, lobsters are handled a lot rougher prior to getting to The Lobster Zone than they ever will be inside The Lobster Zone. Another lobster’s claws are more treacherous to a lobster than our claw.”
Fishman is particularly proud of The Lobster Zone tank, which he says is “state of the art” in saltwater aquariums. “The tank has oversized filtration and an oversized pump for an extremely high flow rate to oxygenate the water,” he says. “The water is so pristine and perfect that it’s the best water that those lobsters have ever seen.
“It’s an honor for them to be in there.”
That would explain why they struggle so hard to stay there.
After all, this is Dick’s Last Resort, a restaurant with the slogan “No class, ever,” where autographed bras (coaxed from patrons) hang above the bar and the souvenir counter sells panties that announce “I got crabs at Dick’s.” It is not likely that The Lobster Zone can lower the taste threshold here.
