He’s on a real lobster roll!
A Long Island chef who became a local hero for advocating for male breast cancer awareness and rubbing elbows with Gordon Ramsay sold his one millionth lobster roll.
Jackson Hall executive chef Mike Landesberg celebrated by shelling out over $2,000 in prizes to the lucky and suspecting winner.
Diners at the East Islip eatery couldn’t wait to get their claws on the milestone lobster roll, he told The Post.
“Every single day, people would come in here, and they’re like, ‘we’re here for No. 1 million,’” Landesberg said. “They ask my hosts, ‘Are we going to be the millionth?’ They try to bribe the servers.”
The lobster-loving Landesberg, who took over as chef in 2021, said he has been selling about 5,000 to 6,000 rolls per week since he started running the show.
He began keeping tabs on his total sales and realized this summer would be the big splash, which led Landesberg to turn his high-volume social media pages into a de facto daily ticker.
“I really started hyping it up — weeks ahead of when I knew the day was coming.”
The skilled cook, once featured on Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” at an old restaurant, went viral for offering a whopping 10 different styles of lobster rolls – including a signature one named after the island with Cajun honey butter and jalapeños.
Landesberg gained some local fame outside of the kitchen as well.
In late 2021, he defeated male breast cancer and became a fundraising advocate for men and women fighting the disease, an effort that landed him back on TV with a guest spot on “Good Morning America.”
“Where I was five years ago, it’s just really incredible to see what we’ve built and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” he said.
Landesberg also won over many for going out of his way to help struggling businesses and being overwhelmingly generous.
He even offered a $200 gift card online to a customer who most accurately predicted the day, time and type of roll ordered for the 1 millionth sale.
It went gangbusters online as patrons also kept an eye on when to come in to try and win the big prize of over $2,000 in restaurant gift cards — $1,500 to Jackson Hall and another $700 to local businesses who donated.
“I never expected that a silly little lobster roll could create so much buzz and bring a whole community together,” he added. “It really made me want to give something back.”
When that fateful day arrived on Thursday, Aug. 6, Landesberg had a balloon drop ready to roll and the B-52s hit “Rock Lobster” on standby to play as a packed house lined up outside the door before Jackson Hall opened at noon with 32 to go.
The winners were an unsuspecting, casino-loving couple from Bohemia celebrating their anniversary after tying the knot at the Little White Chapel in Las Vegas 23 years ago.
“We never win anything,” said Joseph Fasano after finally hitting a shellfish jackpot with his wife, Denise.
The retired educators ordered Connecticut-style rolls at 12:31 p.m., for those who are keeping tabs on the exact timing.
Denise was one of the many Long Islanders scanning Landesberg’s social media to get a sense of when No. 1 million would hit. She was scrolling late at night a few days prior and woke up her husband to tell him how close they were.
“I said, hey! they’re really close.”
After the happy couple made their reservation, it was still some fate and intuition that led to the wonderful surprise.
“The reservation we made was for 12:45 p.m., but we decided to go early because we knew the parking would be crazy,” said Joseph, a regular at Mohegan Sun.
“We would have missed it if we had come at our reservation time.”
And even though Ramsay took a few playful digs at Landesberg when they filmed together, the local chef bet the A-lister’s reaction to the milestone would be uncharacteristically cheery.
“I’m convinced that he would just give me a big hug and be like, ‘This is absolutely incredible.’”
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