"Steady, hospitable Lobster Shop lets menu suffice for excitement"
Bart Ripp
The News Tribune

The phrase "right as rain" applies to the South Sound wet season, here at last, and to Tacoma's Ruston Way.

It's safe to return to Ruston Way without being rendered deaf by car stereos or pancaked by Rollerbladers commandeering the sidewalks. The sky is a good gray, trees have turned red and gold, and it's a swell time to try one of the South Sound's most consistent restaurants.

Opened in 1981 as a sibling to the orginal operation at Dash Point, the Ruston Way Lobster Shop is a model of hospitality. Chef Jim Belisle's menu has exciting options, the Twilight Menu is a stellar value and service is brisk and professional. The store boasts a dated but extremely well-tended interior. Think 1980's, a model of mahogany and mauve.

My rain hat is doffed to owners Denny Driscoll and Ike Van Skike. They have a commitment to quality Pacific Northwest food and wine. They are always at their stores, unlike many restaurant bigshots who are off on their boats.

Driscoll and Van Skike have enjoyed success by tempering their options. Instead of going wild on expansion, Driscoll and Van Skike have grown slowly. In 1996, they added Porter & Stout's in Lakewood.

... The Lobster Shop's lofty merits are enhanced by menus that are descriptive without descending to cuteness. And the Lobster Shop website (www.lobstershop.com), sharply designed and easy to navigate, is one of the best by a Puget Sound restaurant.

... Young people on a budget might try the Twilight Menu, served 4:30 to 5:30 on Sunday through Friday afternoons. For $14.99, you get an appetizer like a bay shrimp cocktail or an oyster shooter, chowder or salad, and entreee and a dessert like creme brulee or an overly alcoholic amaretto chocolate mousse. Best of the nine entrees was Alaska ling cod baked in a crunchy potato crust. Also liked the chicken puttanesca sauteed with garlic, olive oil, diced tomatoes, kalamata olives, capers, basil and oregano and tossed with bucatini (hollow, spaghetti-style) pasta. When ordering from the main menu, start with lobster bisque. I like the bisque's punchy heat from tiny chilies, and the crunch from sprigs of lobster. Lunch and dinner menus offer many options, plus a specials sheet of six or eight items. I like combos, which let you try several of Chef Belisle's favorites.

... There are two fine fowl items- artichoke chicken, a breast sauteed with artichoke hearts, shallots and thyme, plus shiitake and crimini mushrooms, or Dijon chicken basted with Dijon mustard, horseradish, lemon juice and mayonnaise, rolled in bread crumbs and Parmesan, then baked and topped with a mild Dijon sauce.

... Lovers of noble swimmers will like Lobster Shop's cioppino awash with sea scallops, tiger prawns, king salmon, ling cod, Manila clams and Penn Cove mussels, and a standout version of pan-fried oysters.

... The desserts list has a foundation of Olympic Mountain ice cream from Shelton. Lunch and dinner portions are generous, so you might want to go light and try and triple swirl of passion fruit, orange and guava sorbets. Or you might say, "What diet?" and order a blueberry-peach crisp enhanced by an almond streusel crust, and served with Olympic Mountain's signature vanilla bean ice cream.

... The Lobster Shop's location at the northern reaches of Ruston Way sometimes puts it out of sight. But the restaurant comes to mind for a solid dining experience. Like October rain, it's reliable.

"Luscious food, fine service are The Lobster Shop's lures"
Bart Ripp
The News Tribune

I admire Denny Driscoll. The Tacoma restaurateur opened The Lobster Shop 13 years ago in an old waterfront general store and post office at Dash Point. In 1981, Driscoll opened another Lobster Shop on the resuscitated shores of Ruston Way. In an era when restaurant owners get greedy, multiplying their operations like mushrooms, compromising quality for profits, Driscoll has declined franchisehood. The Lobster Shops are model operations. Every sap who envisions turning a successful restaurant into 10 should eat at Driscoll's stores, experience professional service, soak in the compelling views of Commencement Bay and Puget Sound and realize that the quality is not just the best answer, in the teeming restaurant business, it is the only way to go. Dash Point has no competition. It is wedged in between a city park, a fishing dock and a neighborhood whose kids do wheelies on bikes to entertain diners. For the package of food, atmosphere and especially relaxed professional service, The Dash Point store might just be the best restaurant in Tacoma. Everything works. One of the best restaurants in the greater Tacoma area now has a fancy new counterpart right in the city. While the original Lobster Shop (July 1979) capitalizes on the quaintness of Dash Point, its seaside house looking out over the fishing pier, the new locale is definitely uptown. The smart modern architecture begins with sweeping arc-shaped building which takes in a fine view of Commencement Bay. Tiered seating is employed in the new dining room as well so that every table can enjoy the waterfront window wall. Everything is plush from soft carpeting to copper ornamentation, decorative lamps in each banquette (a happy reprieve from flickering candles), and rich fabrics of complementary brown tones. At the window level tables are spacious and surrounded by comfortable cloth bound arm chairs. The next level up is entirely banquettes, then these two levels are repeated above. The privacy is as impressive as the chic modern interiors. And the service persons, fairly young, have been well trained. Lobster Shop has put together a combination of fine seafood, simply and lovingly prepared, presented by the pleasant and astute young service persons. Add to this the smart modern decor of the new restaurant on Ruston Way and you have a seafood center worth driving to.

Lobster Shop South: "The" Tacoma Restaurant
Food and Wine
Glenda and Ronald Holden

Prevailing winds usually blow Tacoma's industrial odors towards I-5 and make the City of Destiny a place to be driven through, not to. But Tacoma has hidden assets: large expanses of waterfront, hills which provide breathtaking views of the mountains and the Sound. And now there's an exciting new restaurant in Tacoma to boot. It's the Lobster Shop South, right on Commencement Bay. The owner, Denny Driscoll, is an alumnus of the Hindquarter chain; he opened the original Lobster Shop on the water at Dash Point four years ago in a quaint and funky old house. The big, bright new place appears to be the opposite, another "formula" restaurant: a bleached wood exterior design designed by Seattle's trendy Bob Meshner; an interior (by Tacoma's Paul Ellingson) that takes some of the better elements from Americas Cup. But careful attention to detail has pronounced genuine individuality in the performance here: well drilled waiters who take the time  to serve properly without being obsequious; seafood (from Johnny's in Tacoma) that really is fresh every day; and a kitchen staff that knows how to treat fish with respect and restraint. In addition, there's the stunning use the Lobster Shop makes of its location. Unlike America's Cup, which provides a distant city-shape across Lake Union through its' picture windows, or Ray's boathouse, which allows diners a long look over the water to the Olympics, the Lobster Shop's terraced seating is right on top of the water and provides a dramatic feeling for the Sound itself. The view is worthwhile in three directions: north, towards Browns Point and Magnolia; west, across from Kitsap peninsula to the Olympics; and east to Tacoma's busy port and Mount Rainier looming just beyond. Motorboats and sloops tie up at the dock from time to time these long summer evenings, unloading groups of sporty people who stop in for a drink and appetizer on the Lobster Shop's flowered deck. The active singles scene (the lounge opens an hour or so before the dining room and stays open till legal closing hours) came as something of a surprise to Driscoll, who hadn't counted on the traffic.

"The food at the Lobster Shop does its own boasting"
Eating Out
Schuyler Ingle

The food at the Lobster Shop does its own boasting. It is a pleasure to sit down to eat in a restaurant where the food is straightforward and the gimmicks are few and far between. I'm talking about the Lobster Shop on Ruston Way. Here is a menu that doesn't pump the customer full of florid descriptive phrases on to deliver so-so food. "Lobster Bisque, a house specialty" is all you will find written about a tasteful treat. What more needs to be said when the truth of the matter is there to be discovered by tastebuds? And tastebuds don't need reading glasses. It was a glorious evening. The strollers and serious walkers along Ruston. Way were dressed for a summer sunset, not this Indian Summer weather that quickly comes and quickly goes. Nothing could have been sweeter than to cruise right into a table by the windows at the Lobster Shop and look out onto the water and the tip of Vashon Island.