Sailor & Siren is a new Greenpoint-based pop-up business that serves fresh lobster rolls at bars in Greenpoint and Williamsburg.
Natalie Borowski, a Greenpoint local and the founder of Sailor & Siren, told Greenpointers that her pop-up business “has been a long time coming.”
“The idea first started brewing ten years ago when I visited Maine with my life partner, Reid,” Borowski said. “His family owns the oldest working lobster wharf in midcoast Maine, and that trip was the first time I tasted what I now consider a real lobster roll.” Borowski grew up on Long Island and thought she knew good seafood, but that first bite completely changed her perspective.
Borowski is a food lover and has always wanted to build something of her own. “This summer I launched Sailor & Siren to bring fresh, authentic Maine lobster rolls to NYC, starting in North Brooklyn, where I currently live and where my parents first lived after immigrating to the U.S.,” she said. “It felt like the perfect place to begin: a community that values great food, real quality, and local stories.”
Sailor & Siren keeps its menu tight. It serves two varieties of lobster rolls made from a family recipe with one full Maine lobster in each roll, sourced from the family wharf.
The first option is the Simple Sailor with fresh lobster meat, cage-free mayo and grass-fed butter on a toasted New England-style bun. The second option, the Salty Siren, is the same sandwich topped with caviar.
For dessert, there are three flavors of whoopee pies. The Maine-iac is chocolate with vanilla cream; the Wicked Lobe Love is red velvet with vanilla cream; and the Wild Blue is wild Maine blueberry with lemon cream.
“I’m very focused on being food waste free, as that’s a core value of mine,” Borowski highlighted. The pop-ups usually sell out, so there is minimal food waste, but what is left over goes to her parent’s chickens on Long Island.
Borowski is also trying to build awareness for The Trevor Project via QR codes at Sailor & Siren’s pop-ups. (She is donating too.)
“We’re still a super new business, so I’m figuring out how best to support causes I care about and to give back to the community,” she said.
The next Sailor & Siren pop-up is happening Thursday, June 19 through Saturday, June 21 at Broken Land (105 Franklin St.). Lobster rolls will be available starting at 2 p.m. on Thursday and Saturday and at 4 p.m. on Friday.
Then, on Thursday, June 26, Sailor & Siren will pop up again at Pencil Factory (142 Franklin St.) from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
More pop-up dates for this summer will be announced soon.
Nicely written and beautifully photographed and excellent info.
Since the Lobster Joint closed, people living there had to trek to Nassau Ave. to get. one.
The old joke was before the area was gentrified the only lobster you saw was a dead one in Newtown Creek.