A few years ago, Outback Steakhouse called Bill Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, about a surf-and-turf problem.
In Massachusetts, the restaurant chain couldn’t just buy a box of frozen American lobster tails plucked from New England waters to later prepare and plate shell-on beside a filet. Instead, the restaurants were forced to feature spiny lobster tails sourced from the Gulf of Mexico or South African or Australian waters, leaving Outback with a question for Adler: What’s going on here in Massachusetts?
The answer, Adler said, was the law, which allowed for processing but not sales of American lobster tails within state lines.
