Orlandic Seafood

by Sandra Dinsmore

The new fish market on Route 1 between Bucksport and Ellsworth in Orland. Fisherman Patrick Dow started the market this summer. It’s open every day 9 to 6. Sandra Dinsmore photo

A new seafood market opened on August 1, on Route One between Bucksport and Ellsworth. The owner, Sandy Point lobsterman Patrick Dow, 58, took advantage of the property being part of the village of Orland, and named it Orlandic Seafood. It’s open seven days a week, from 9 to 6.

Orlandic Seafood is Dow’s second seafood market and fourth seafood business. In October 2008 when the three Icelandic banks that financed the Atlantic seafood industry failed, the boat price of lobster dropped precipitously to $2/lb. and even $1.80/lb. Dow had to go to southern Maine, and as he was driving he said he noticed, “It didn’t make any difference if the dock price was $1.80/lb., all the shops were still charging $3.50, $3.75, $3.99/lb. They were making double the money.” Dow said he thought to himself, I should be able to break into this. He came home and told Jeff Soper, with whom he was then in business. He then recalled, “We started out with a set of hanging scales and told everybody in sight that we were going to start selling lobsters and we were going to do it on a Saturday or Sunday on the side of the road out of a cooler.”

It worked. They kept at it and before long they bought a small tank from the wife of a friend and moved their business from the side of the road to their sternman’s garage for a summer.

That worked so well; the sternman left sterning to sell lobsters. He made as much selling as he did being a sternman, and at 60, it was physically easier. But eventually the sternman’s wife got tired of having a dusty driveway and lots of fishermen hanging around the garage, so she made them move out.

Dow and Soper then bought a refrigerated Garalick milk delivery box that went on the back of a truck, set it up on the ground across US 1 (Acadia Highway) from the new seafood market, and built a deck on it. “It was super insulated,” Dow recalled, “a super rig. That was Pelican Seafood.” (Dow named his seafood market after his beloved old 30-foot Jonesport lobsterboat PELICAN.) He and Soper ran Pelican Seafood for three or four years, selling all kinds of fish and shellfish, but Dow wanted the business to go further. He bought the property Orlandic Seafood sits on four to five years ago.

He first planned the building for a new seafood market in his head. Then he put his design on paper and started buying parts when they were on sale, saying, “I always do the Charlie cheapie thing. I had a deal on this and a deal on that.”

The building, which Dow described as “basically a box.” It’s 24 feet by 28 feet and 21 feet tall with a 10-inch pitch and two-foot overhangs. (Dow likes big overhangs, explaining, “I hate to have water run over the side of a building.”) It also has narrow 10-foot-long transom windows set high on three of the four walls because, Dow said, “I didn’t want the pillheads crawling through the windows.” He also had to keep the windows above the refrigerators. He wanted plenty of light and he remembered how effective transom windows were in a number of barns he’d seen.

Eager to start the building, Dow was on the property early this past spring with a snow blower, according to his partner and girlfriend, Tammy Hustus. “I’d been three years waiting to get that building started,” Dow explained. The groundwork—the driveway and the concrete slab the building sits on—wasn’t done the first year, and Dow didn’t have the equipment to do it himself. The second year the concrete guy was busy and gave Dow just a small window of time to do the job. Then it snowed. Finally this past spring with the help of a snow blower Dow and Hustus got the driveway and concrete people together and completed the groundwork.

Mothers’ Day weekend they started work on the building, and nine days later they completed the main frame and everything except the inside. “If the groundwork had been done, the building would have been done at least a year ago,” Dow said. “It’s been one of those long waits.”

But the finished product is a joy. Dow loves people. Of the shop he said, “It’s a good place to hang out in the afternoon after we get back from fishing. Schmooze a little bit. Schmoozing is a good thing in the afternoon. You get to meet a lot of interesting people.” He admitted that the business is not all serious, saying, “There’s an extreme social aspect to it: you get to raise hell with kids, and people come in an take pictures. It’s a blast. This job is the best job I ever had in my life. And the retail aspect of it is phenomenal. I don’t get enough time to retail. I have to go to work. But it’s a lot of fun.”

Orlandic Seafood, which still isn’t quite finished, is partly for Dow’s retirement, but also, he said, “It’s actually the kids’ inheritance, too.” Dow has a son and two daughters in their thirties. He explained, “I have a son in North Carolina who would love to come home. I’ve a daughter in Prospect who would love to run it, too. The other daughter is in Iowa. She won’t come home.” Dow’s son went to Maine Maritime Academy, but his post-graduate career has not been that satisfying, his father said. “Chris would like to come home and go fishing,” Dow said, “but with regulations the way they are, he’s got to work as a sternman for two years.” After taking a breath, Dow said, “My son is not going to come up here and apprentice. That’s not going to happen. It’s a hard transition. He’s got two kids. He’s got to find a house and the whole nine yards.” Dow said, “I think the best thing I can do is go LLC or incorporate it. If anything happens, [the government] can’t take that. This winter I’ll talk to a lawyer and see what I can do.”

As for stocking his seafood shop, Dow said, “I couldn’t begin to sell in the shop all the lobsters I catch.” Consequently, he sells part to a co-op. “I don’t belong to a co-op.” (If he did he’d have to sell it his whole catch). “I don’t buy its bait. I just sell to the dock. I keep a portion of my lobsters to sell at the shop.” Hustus said Dow plans to apply for a license so he can cook and serve lobster on the Orlandic premises.

Because Dow is selling his own catch retail, eliminating the middlemen supermarkets have to pay, he is able to sell his lobster for less than area supermarkets do. Of all the other seafood they sell, Hustus said, “We can beat everybody’s prices.” On the other hand, Dow noted, “We’re not right in town and we’re in between Bucksport and Ellsworth, but if people can get to know we’re open and they support the business, I’ll make sure it’s quality and make sure it’s clean, and I’ll keep it just as affordable as I can.”