The Lobster Roll Northside in Baiting Hollow and the adjacent North Fork Tasting Room have changed hands.
Michael McCann has taken over the two businesses and will rename the 100-seat restaurant Sound Bistro, according to Lobster Roll founder and property owner Fred Terry Sr.
Terry remains owner of the adjacent baked good decorating workshop Gingerbread University and he is still a principal in the Lobster Roll’s iconic Amagansett location, which appears as a setting in the Showtime series “The Affair.”
He will focus on Gingerbread University, writing a book on his South Fork restaurant and restoring an old family barn.
“It’s time to move on,” he said in a statement. “I’ve loved being a food guy but competing in this arena nowadays requires more energy than I am willing or able to commit.”
Terry also said the death of his two sons to alcoholism played a role in his decision to leave the industry.
Terry purchased the South Fork restaurant in 1965. The success there led him to buy and renovate an old farmhouse on Sound Avenue in 1999, turning it into the Lobster Roll Northside. The establishment sits across the street from the original Terry family farm.
Terry opened North Fork Tasting Room, which served local wine and beer as well as small plates, in 2012.
Legend has it the Hamptons restaurant is the birthplace of the sandwich that bears its name. However, Terry cautions, he did not actually invent the lobster roll, as some believe.
“According to the American Dictionary of Food and Drink, I am the one who invented the lobster salad roll,” Terry told us on 2015. “Now I don’t make that claim. What happened is we bought this little clam bar and started serving lobster as a salad. The New England tradition was always lobster served with hot butter. For the Long Island/Connecticut version, they call it a lobster salad roll. So I didn’t invent it, we moved it greatly forward.”
McCann did not immediately calls seeking comment.
Terry had listed the entire Baiting Hollow shopping center on the market in 2015, but this deal only encompasses the business.
