Tag Archives: Ben Conniff
These young black men catch more than lobsters. They also catch a break
At 15, Cristiano Silva thought he might spend the summer working at a McDonald’s near his home on the outskirts of Portland, Maine, and help with household expenses. Instead, he found himself on a lobster boat called the Sea Smoke, out among Casco Bay’s rocky islands. One breezy day on the boat last month, Cris scrunched his nose and placed a fist-size mesh bait bag full of smelly herring inside a wire lobster trap. This spring he and three other Black teens were recruited from area high schools to learn how to lobster in a new program called “Lift All Boats.” >click to read< 11:06
How a 25-year-old turned his ‘passion project’ into a global business with $30 million in sales
When recent college grads Luke Holden and Ben Conniff opened a hole-in-the-wall, 200-square-foot lobster shack in New York City’s East Village in the fall of 2009, they were wholly unprepared. The two had recently met through Craigslist and gave themselves a two-month time-frame to open their shack, which they dubbed “Luke’s Lobster.”,,, Holden did have an idea he was excited about: a lobster shack.,,, Holden saw a hole in the market. He called his dad, who had 50 years of experience as a Maine lobsterman, dealer and processor, and asked him to be a 50-50 investor in the first Luke’s Lobster shack. >click to read<13:43
