Photo: Sue with her husband, Vinnie, and their daughter, Emma.

Neighborhood: Pine Point

In Scarborough since: Birth. I came home from the hospital to the house right next to the lobster pound.

Have you lived anywhere else? Only when I went away to college in New Hampshire.

Why have you stayed?

I’m not a city person. I like living in a small town, knowing the people around me, and I like being part of a family business. My family has run this place for four generations. Growing up, my family was always around. They didn’t have to leave for work each day and be away. I started working here when I was 12. I’d be with my grandmother and she would introduce me to customers. It’s the same for my daughter, who is 11 now. She always knows where I am.

It’s a lifestyle, not a job. You can’t walk away from your work but you get to always be with your family. Some people wouldn’t care for it, but I love it.

It’s not just my immediate family that are part of this. Some of the people we work with have families who’ve been here just as long and we’ve been intertwined for four and five generations.

What to you represents the best of Scarborough?

It’s the times when everyone is helping each other. I think of Father’s Day 2014, when a car crashed into the restaurant. It was at night, right after we’d locked up and gone home. A drunk driver crashed into the building and the car landed in our walk-in freezer. Everyone jumped into action. One neighbor called the police, another chased the man down the street, someone else came over to watch our daughter (who was a baby at the time), and the fire department set up a bucket brigade to help us try to save the shrimp in the freezer. We help each other out down here.

What do you remember fondly about “old” Scarborough? What do you like about “new” Scarborough?

[Pauses] I don’t really think there’s an “old” and “new” Scarborough, at least not in Pine Point. There are new buildings, but I meet the people who are in them and they’re still coming for the same reason. People see new faces, but sometimes it’s just the next generation of a family that’s been coming here for generations. And, yes, people complain about the traffic, but I have been listening to that since 1978.

What is your greatest hope for Scarborough?

I hope we maintain our sense of community no matter how big or small we are.

When you think about your businesses, what are you most proud of?

That we’ve been able to maintain four generations of ownership. Every generation has expanded and added something for the community. We’re one of the last locally owned lobster buying stations in Maine. I’m proud that we help local people make a living. We probably buy from 35 clammers and 25 lobstermen, and we employ a lot of people on the front end. We also have people from other countries who come from difficult circumstances. They work hard to take money back home. 

What about your day-to-day operations do you think would most surprise people?

[Laughs] How many hours we work. Right now, my husband, Vinnie, leaves the house at 6am and we get home at 11pm. And it’s seven days a week Memorial Day through Labor Day. We when we work 40-hours a week in the winter, we joke that it’s part-time.

What’s your favorite part of your job?

It’s the problem solving and the creativity that’s required when you’re starting and running an operation like this. For a restaurant, it’s coming up with the vision, designing the menu, laying out the kitchen. You have to figure it out as you go. I remember when we rebuilt the dock for the Bait Shed and my father said, “Who’s going to want to sit and look at the mud?”

What’s something no one in town knows about you?

[Laughs] Well, my daughter jokes that I can’t go to sleep without watching a good murder, meaning the mystery shows I watch before I go to bed.  

How did you get connected with Scarborough newcomer Adeeb Nelson?

He came as a J1 student when he was 20 years old. We met him through an agent. Now he’s an essential part of the business and our family. He lives right next to us and he even helps with my dad, who is in a wheelchair now.

What have you learned from his experience as a newcomer?

That our community is really awesome. He’s the friendliest person you’ll ever meet. He talked to the clam diggers and the lobstermen and won them over in a heartbeat. They have 100% taken him in as a Pine Pointer.