Soon after The Lobster (Oyster and Chop House) opened in New York City in 1919 the era of Prohibition began, and many restaurants went under because of the ban on the sale of alcohol.

Not only did The Lobster flourish during this period, but two other seafood restaurants eventually opened on either side of it to service the mobs of people who could not get tables in this popular ‘lobster palace.’

Owners Max Fuchs and Simon Linz both had long and distinguished histories in the hospitality industry before going into business together. Linz had been a steward at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and Fuchs, who was born in the future Czechoslovakia and arrived in the US in his teens, had been captain of waiters at Luchow’s and head waiter at the Alhambra restaurant in Harlem.

Postcards from the restaurant’s early days show low-ceiling’d and cavernous rooms crammed with tables. There was the elegant main dining room, and the basement dining room called The Cave. Decorations included huge, mounted lobsters and original drawings by illustrators and cartoonists Fay King and Harry Hershfield.

Fresh seafood was the order of any day, of course, and the atmosphere was said to be polished but frenetic with bawdy but humorous waiters dashing back and forth to take live lobsters to the kitchen (each customer could choose their lobster.)

 An oyster bar was at the front of the establishment, and we love this quote about one of its guests, New Yorker journalist and epicurean A J Liebling, who was a regular.

‘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?'’

This restaurant, located in the middle of Manhattan’s theatre district, was also a pioneer in take-out food.

The two founders handed over The Lobster – which never sold frozen seafood – to their sons Myron ‘Mike’ Linz and Stanley Fuchs. After more than five decades, the restaurant went out of business in the mid-70s, due to a combination of factors including union negotiations, the decline of the area around Times Square and changing tastes in food.

We can date this menu to 1959, when the founders’ sons were in charge. On the back of the original menu is a postcard-sized space where customers could write a friend’s name and address, and The Lobster stamped and mailed menus. It was an early form of viral marketing, and this menu went to Chicago Heights, Illinois.

Thanks to https://ihappentolikenewyork.com and https://thenewyorkcityrestaurantarchive.wordpress.com/ for some of this information.