Going out for lobster can be a production: make a reservation, ready your credit card and dress up, even though your clothes are destined to be covered by a big plastic bib.

Matt Dean Pettit is out to change that (OK, there may still be bibs).

Owner of Rock Lobster Food Co. , and creator of the most hyped lobster roll in the city right now, he’s bent on getting the speckled crustacean off of fine china and onto a wooden platter.

READ AND WATCH PART 2: Rock Lobster Co.’s lobster roll recipe

“Our focus is on making the lobster approachable,” the 33-year-old former rugby player says. “Bringing it down to earth, taking the pretension out of seafood.”

What better place to do that than Ossington Ave.?

Pettit has just signed a lease for a 75-seat restaurant between Dundas and Queen Sts. And starting Dec. 1, he hopes to sell lobster rolls, lobster poutine, lobster cappuccino, lobster macaroni and cheese, and vanilla butter poached lobster on steak tartare. Lobster creations are expected to run $8 to $14.

He promises a venue that recreates the excitement he felt when, as a child, he visited Red Lobster with his parents and picked his dinner from the tank.

His place will be more hip, of course, with blaring music, an urban vibe and affordable price — “old school Canadiana” meets “Bruce Springsteen meets Jay-Z,” says Pettit.

He has already procured a rusting anchor, authentic marine lights and wooden traps to spice up the decor.

And he has told his lobster supplier, a Nova Scotia fisherman with 30 years of experience, to expect to work hard.

Since Pettit’s catering company began popping up in venues around the city eight months ago — his first event was staged in an alleyway beside the Cosmopolitan Hotel last March — he has sold more than 5,000 pounds of lobster in various forms, including his signature roll and bisque.

Despite a glut of soft shell lobsters after a warm, plentiful growing season this summer had made lobster reach rock bottom prices, such as the $1.99 per tail they sold for at Loblaws last week.

Pettit, however, uses only hard shell Atlantic lobsters caught in the Maritimes.

The soft shell lobsters are less mature, removed from the ocean before they’ve grown a hard shell. Without that solid exterior for protection, the lobster flesh becomes bloated with seawater, making the meat less flavourful, fresh and light.

“It’s not bad for you,” says Ryan Shephard, who manages the wholesale side of seafood distribution for Diana’s Seafood in Scarborough. “It’s just not as tasty and not great value for your dollar.”

Tom Antonarakis, of Buster’s Sea Cove, a food truck and seafood storefront in St. Lawrence Market that also sells lobster rolls for $13 (with chips and a pickle), says customers have been asking about his enduringly high prices in light of all this news about a “glut.”

Like Pettit, he buys Atlantic hard shells from Nova Scotia, where colder waters have produced fewer lobsters, but high quality ones. Those creatures have maintained their healthy price tag of about $15.99/pound. “People keep asking about it,” says Antonarakis. “It hasn’t affected business, but they keep asking.”

For Pettit, the questions from his hungry, loyal followers have centred around his plans to open a restaurant for some time.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Less than five minutes after the opening last May of the Toronto Underground Market, the lineup at Pettit’s stand snaked past the other vendors with 250 hungry customers. At last month’s event, he sold 1,500 mini lobster rolls for $4 each. In the past eight months he has catered 50 events and opened a successful Kensington Market pop-up shop for the summer.

“People just swarm,” Pettit says. “They literally run and line up as we pump out food.”

Not bad for a guy with no formal culinary training. His only restaurant experience comes from working his way from busboy to line chef at a chain restaurant in his teens, but Pettit looks the part of chef-in-charge when he strides into the Star’s test kitchen this week carrying a cardboard box bearing lobsters.

He places it down on the cooking island and bravely scoops up a flailing crustacean even though it has wriggled free of the elastic band that was supposed to keep one of its claws safely clasped.

“You guys are going to take a nice hot bath,” he says, before making his lobster rolls. The sweet, warm lobster bathed in mayo has a lemony kick and just a hint of spice. It’s a squishy mouthful thanks to the soft white bun.

He’s well-versed in what it takes to market a successful brand: Since working as a Labatt campus representative during university, he has breezed through high-level jobs in the corporate beverage world, handling brands such as Hennessy, Guinness and Smirnoff.

After an “aha moment” as a guest at the first Toronto Underground Market in September 2011, where he felt he should be part of the food vending mania, he penned a manifesto for Rock Lobster Food Co. in a 14-hour writing binge (and no, it’s not named for the B-52s song). He ran his business plan by Origin restaurant executive chef and owner Claudio Aprile.

“It was a nice validation,” Pettit remembers. “(Aprile) told me I was on the right page.”

That solidified his decision to leave his lucrative Bay Street job for the uncertain world of restaurants. The rest, so to speak, is recent history.

Pettit has more energy and enthusiasm than the throngs who crowd his stands demanding lobster rolls. He has a vision for his Ossington Ave. space and will be doing much of the manual labour himself.

“Sharing plates, impeccable service, quality food,” he says. “That’s what people want. Approachable seafood. And just for fun, there will be bibs.”

mhenry@thestar.ca