Maine Lobster Roll Cost Calculator
Cold lobster meat tossed with mayo, served on a butter-toasted split bun. Premium seafood pushes food cost well above a typical entrée. Prefilled with US average ingredient costs. Edit any quantity or price to match what you actually pay, and the math updates as you type.
How much does it cost to make Maine Lobster Roll?
About $12.80 in ingredients to make one 4 oz lobster roll, and $11.20 of it is the lobster meat; the bun, mayo, butter, and sides add $1.60. Maine shacks and restaurants charge $22 to $47 for their largest roll, about $36 on average (July 2026). This page uses $32, a 40.0% food cost.
Where the money goes
| Lobster meat (cooked) | 87.5% · $11.20 | |
|---|---|---|
| New England split bun | 8.6% · $1.10 | |
| Mayo + butter + lemon + chives | 2.0% · $0.25 | |
| Lettuce + side chips | 2.0% · $0.25 |
What 60 of them return at different prices
| Your price | Food cost % | Over ingredients, each | Over ingredients, 60 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $24.00 | 53.3% | $11.20 | $672.00 |
| $32.00 US average | 40.0% | $19.20 | $1152.00 |
| $40.00 | 32.0% | $27.20 | $1632.00 |
Ingredients only. Labor, packaging, fuel, and stall or platform fees come out of these figures.
The meat is the roll: $11.20 of the $12.80, with everything else together at $1.60. That makes it a 40.0% food cost at $32, well above the 28-32% most restaurants aim for, and there is nothing outside the meat to trim. Every ounce of meat is $2.80, 8.75 percentage points of food cost, so the portion is a number to set and print on the menu. A 5 oz roll at the same $32 costs $15.60, 48.8%; a 3 oz roll costs $10.00, 31.3%. A common portion is 4 oz: the LDI Lobster Dock and Dine roll on Little Deer Isle, Maine, is 4 oz with chips, slaw, and a pickle for $32 (July 2026). A bigger roll is a separate item at its own price, not an extra scoop: Geddy's in Bar Harbor sells a half-pound roll for $70.
Summer is when the meat is cheapest. Most Maine lobsters molt from early summer into fall, and a new-shell (soft-shell) lobster is full of water: it gives 15 to 18% of its live weight as cooked meat, against about 20% for a hard-shell one. The dock price falls further than the yield does. In late August 2014, Maine fishermen were offered about $3.25 a pound for new-shell lobsters and $6 for hard-shell; at 16% and 20% yields, that is $20.31 and $30 a pound of meat at the boat price, before the dealer's markup. The lower yield takes back part of the discount, not all of it, so the weeks when shacks are busiest are also the cheapest for meat. The price that hurts is the dock price from year to year: Maine boats were paid $2.69 a pound in 2012 and $5.85 in 2025. At a 20% yield, each $1 a pound on live lobster adds $5 a pound to the meat, $1.25 to a 4 oz roll, and 3.9 points to food cost; to stay at 40%, the menu price has to rise about $3.13 for each such dollar.
Which meat goes in matters as much as how much. The $2.80 an ounce here ($44.80 a pound) is a foodservice price for fresh-picked Maine meat, meaning cooked and shelled tail, claw, and knuckle; retail sellers ask $60 to $70 a pound for the same (Taylor Lobster $59.99, Klenda Seafood $64.99). Frozen claw and knuckle meat costs less: a 2 lb bag at Costco runs $69.99 to $84.99, $35 to $42.50 a pound even at retail, and at $35 the meat in a roll drops to $8.75, a 32.3% food cost at $32. Picking live lobsters in house pays off mainly in summer, when new-shell lobsters are cheap at the dock, and only with a cook who has slack time: a pound of meat takes five or six one-pound lobsters to cook and pick. Save the shells for stock or bisque.