Superior Lobster Comes to Sandwich

Inside Superior Lobster’s Sandwich store the catches of local fishermen are on display fresh from the docks of nearby harbors. The business’s location on Gallo Road has been a fish market for years, but in 2020, Superior Lobster, which also runs a store in Humarock, took over the space and revamped it. “We’ve completely transformed the space,” says co-owner and general manager Darryl Durnford. “We have state-of-the-art equipment, everything is displayed beautifully, and it’s all dayboat fish, fresh daily.”

Durnford runs Superior Lobster with his business partners, Kurt and Conrad Bletzer. The company provides quality seafood to restaurants, catering companies, fish markets, and locals and it ships seafood across the United States and internationally. They also prepare lobster meat daily and sell lobster rolls to order from both locations. “The lobster roll is definitely one of our most popular items,” says Durnford.

While the Sandwich location may be new, Durnford is no stranger to the fishing industry. He began his career as a teenager working on boats out of his hometown of Plymouth. “I developed a love for it, and I thrived in the industry. It became really natural to me,” he says. After his career took him to Alaska for over a decade, Durnford returned to launch his own operation in East Coast waters. 

Running a successful seafood business means adapting to meet the evolving demands of the industry. Nonetheless, Durnford says some things remain the same, like the importance of relationships. “A lot of what we do is all about one-on-one encounters,” says Durnford. “We go to the docks and we pick up lobsters. We’re doing that at all harbors from Scituate to Provincetown.” 

Superior Lobster is very family and community focused. Durnford’s son and Bletzer’s son both work in the business, and many of their friends work with them. A happy surprise for Durnford and his team has been seeing that community-driven spirit reciprocated in their first year of operating on the Cape. “We weren’t sure if we were going to stay open after Thanksgiving, but the local community kept coming and supporting us, so we stayed open,” he says. “It was really incredible.”