Take a chance with the claw

Ahh. Friday night. Dinnertime at Knuckleheads Roadhouse, a biker bar and restaurant in Virginia Beach.

A young woman threads three $1 bills into a slot underneath what looks like a large aquarium, its sea floor filled with lobsters. She moves a control knob mounted below the tank. A shiny metal claw rises from a silo in the water and slowly moves sideways and hovers. Cristie Fabijan moves the knob once more.

"Get that one by itself," her sister, Rachel Doty, says, pointing through the glass. "It's right there, right there."

Fabijan positions the claw over the lone lobster and lets it drop. It clamps over the crustacean, rises up... and the lobster instantly wiggles free.

Fabijan tries again, and again, and again.

Fabijan's husband, Allen, feeds more bills into the machine. Doty gives it a try, too, and they all retreat to a booth.

A few minutes later, a couple of older guys try their luck. A waitress gives it a whirl. The fishing is not good.

"This has got to be the best gimmick that has ever been," says Bobby Swanner, heading back to the bar.

It's shaping up to be a burger-and-fries night for sure.

The Lobster Trap is a new game in town where $3 buys customers up to 15 seconds to try bagging a lobster weighing 1-1-1/4 pounds, a bargain price for an upscale entree. The restaurants that house the machines charge about $3 to cook the creatures and about $1 more to add sides.

Order a lobster at a restaurant and it will surely cost 20 bucks or more. Get one steamed at Farm Fresh and it will cost about $14.99 a pound. Get lucky the first time and a Lobster Trap dinner costs a fraction of that. But beware: These lobsters can be pricey.

"There is a trick," said Dorsey Pender, who with his wife, Madonna, owns the company's Virginia franchise. The couple had stopped by Knuckleheads to restock the machine. To demonstrate, Dorsey maneuvered the claw over a lone lobster. "If you just get in under the claws and around the shoulder... "

The machine's metal claw closed around the upper body and lifted the lobster up, up. And then it floated free.

"They're smart," he said. Lots of people think Lobster Traps are just like those claw machines where the prize is a stuffed animal or toy, but "because the lobsters are live and they are moving, they are harder to catch."

Seven Lobster Traps are scattered throughout South Hampton Roads - at Knuckleheads, Poppa's Pub & Restaurant, Baja Cantina and Nat's Surf Sports Grill in Virginia Beach, Long Shots Billiards & Darts and Roger's Sports Pub in Chesapeake and Greenies Coach Lamp Inn in Norfolk.

It all started in May 2007 when the Penders went to Gulf Shores, Ala., to relive happier times and returned to Virginia Beach with a business plan. While there, they lunched at the legendary Flora-Bama, a ramshackle beach bar on the Florida-Alabama line. The couple had just finished eating when they saw two lobster claw machines sitting side by side. Madonna, who at the time loved lobster, wanted to take a chance. But Dorsey nixed it because, well, they had just had lunch. But they did take a card, and now they own the Virginia franchise for the business.

The industry average is one lobster caught for every 15 tries, Dorsey said.

Once, the couple watched a guy spend $60 trying to catch a lobster. They finally just gave him one. Sometimes Dorsey will wedge a poker chip into the claw of a lobster. Catch that one and nab an extra $5 or $10 or perhaps a T-shirt.

The Knuckleheads crowd is getting pretty good at catching the critters - about eight to 10 lobsters are bagged there each week, Dorsey said.

But the real champs are over at Roger's Sports Pub in South Norfolk, where regulars have emptied out the machine, causing the bar owner to call the Penders for emergency restocking. The Roger's average is 15 to 20 lobsters caught each week, and about one lobster caught for every 10 tries.

It's a good business, the Penders said, and not too terribly arduous. They go to work in flip-flops. At regular intervals, they clean and restock the tanks, adjust the salinity, pH and ammonia levels, check the mechanics of the $12,500 machines and empty out the cash. They have a waiting list of places that want the machines.

"I'm happy," Madonna said. "How many people can say they are making a living doing something they like?"

What the couple doesn't like anymore, though, is lobster.

"We don't," Madonna said almost apologetically.

When they first got started, they couldn't get the salinity right in the tanks. That meant they were bringing a lot of lobsters home. Lobster dip, lobster bisque, lobster salad. Their neighbors in the North End of Virginia Beach loved it.

But today? He'd rather have a steak. And Madonna? She'd order fish.

Lorraine Eaton, (757) 446-2697, lorraine.eaton@pilotonline.com