Couple Spots Strange 'Object' In Their Appetizer, Then The Wild Reality Becomes Clear

Cape May is one of the oldest tourist destinations in America. The entire urban area is classified as a National Historic District, and there are more than 600 buildings still standing from the Victorian era. From the gorgeous beaches to the picturesque promenade — not to mention the Jazz and Food & Wine festivals — it’s an amazing place to visit.

Many people go to Cape May for one thing in particular, though: the incredible seafood. In this regard, there’s one establishment that arguably stands head and shoulders above the rest, and it’s even mentioned on the official Visit New Jersey tourism website. We are, of course, talking about The Lobster House, nestled perfectly over Cape May Harbor.

Michael and Maria Spressler were certainly no strangers to the Cape’s iconic seafood eatery. They’d been going there for decades when, in early 2022, they had a meal that may wind up making them a fortune. In fact, what Michael found in his food was so extraordinary that the couple went viral on the internet.

First things first, though — some background on The Lobster House. As of 2011 it was ranked in the Top 50 privately-owned restaurants in the U.S. It has been a family business ever since Jess Laudeman formed The Cold Spring Fish & Supply Company in 1926. He set up shop in Schellenger’s Landing, which is these days more commonly known as The Lobster House docks.

Before the restaurant was given its current moniker, it was known as Bateman’s. It simply happened to be a part of the land Jess had bought, and he leased it to eager restaurateurs while he built up his fishing business. But in 1955 the ownership came back to him, and he gave it to his son Wally, telling him to make something out of it.

Wally and his wife Marijane immediately changed the name from Bateman’s to The Lobster House. As Marijane admitted to magazine Cape May in 2011, though, “We didn’t know anything about the restaurant business. That first year we had six booths with fake red leather seats, five or six tables and a counter that probably seated 12.”

The restaurant grew exponentially over the years and today has the space to cater for 550 diners at a time. That’s almost ten times more people than Bateman’s was equipped to serve. Over the years there have been much-needed expansions, such as the fishing schooner Wally bought in 1965. It was docked in front of the restaurant and became a cocktail lounge on the water!

In 2011 Donna Laudeman — Wally and Marijane’s super-proud daughter and the current hostess of The Lobster House — said her parents had “worked very, very hard.” She fondly recalled to Cape May, “Both Mom and my Dad decorated the place. Mom shopped for antiques and, when I was older, I’d go to New York with her to shop.”

Donna’s brother Keith is also involved in the family business. He is the current president of The Cold Spring Fish & Supply Company, a job he inherited in 2004 when his father passed away. Donna observed, “Keith has stepped into Dad’s shoes really well. I look up to him, almost like a dad.”

To Keith, the restaurant is as important as the rest of the family business. He said, “My job is to make sure everyone leaves the restaurant happy.” Donna added, “Mom taught me how important it is to be nice, have fun and laugh with our guests. I laugh a lot at work.”

Perhaps this is the key to The Lobster House’s enduring success: family. This is what Wally had stressed to Donna when he brought her out of the cocktail bar and into the restaurant to become its hostess. She remembered him telling her, “This is where I need you. You’re the face of the restaurant. People want to see a Laudeman.”

The success of the restaurant is all a far cry from where Wally and Marijane started. When speaking to Cape May, she remembered a night back in 1955 which changed their outlook on the business. Marijane chuckled, “I was closing up that night and counting out the money in the cash drawer — we only took cash then.”

“Suddenly I realized we had $500 dollars in the cash drawer,” Marijane continued, her excitement still obvious. “That was a lot of money back then. It was thrilling! I remember thinking, ‘You know what? For two people who know nothing about running a restaurant, we just might make this work.’”

Well, Michael and Maria Spressler certainly think the restaurant works — they’ve been eating there for more than 30 years! Michael told marketing and news agency NJ Advance Media, “For all the years that we were going down there, as soon as we would get off the Garden State Parkway and go over the bridge, our first stop would be The Lobster House to eat. Because to me they have the best seafood in Jersey.”

When the Spresslers went to the restaurant on that fateful night, it was the 34th anniversary of their first visit! Michael chuckled to CBS News, “Yeah, we first came here Presidents’ Day weekend in 1987.” Perhaps the fates had decided their anniversary would be marked by something special — and highly unexpected.

Michael ordered his regular appetizer at The Lobster House — a dozen half-shell clams. A glug of hot sauce and some lemon spritzed on top and it’s food heaven for the seafood aficionado. But this meal wouldn’t be like any other he’d enjoyed there. After he’d worked his way through 11 tasty clams, he came to the final one.

A taken-aback Michael told CBS News, “I was down to the 12th one and when I picked it up on the fork it looked kind of heavy, but I didn’t think nothing of it. Then when I started to eat it, I noticed something was in my mouth. I actually thought one of my teeth broke.”

Michael pulled a small item out of his mouth and inspected it. It wasn’t a broken tooth, as he’d initially feared. He told New Jersey Advance Media, “I actually thought it was like a little stone or something. But then when I poked it out into the palm of my hand, it was a perfectly round white pearl.”

The Spresslers were both shocked by their discovery. Maria told CBS News, “He’s eaten dozens and dozens of clams, and we’ve never found anything like that, so it was pretty exciting.” Lobster House employee Sarah Stadnicar added, “I have worked here for around ten years now and I’ve never heard of someone finding one in one of our oysters or clamshells.”

After finding the pearl, Michael knew he had to do some research. He quickly found that the likelihood of finding a pearl in a clam is roughly 10,000 to one. But he also saw that the pearl, which was 8.83 millimeters in size, could be worth a pretty penny. A very pretty penny, in fact.

According to The Pearl Source website, the value of any one pearl very much depends on its condition and provenance. For example, round freshwater pearls can fetch as little as $50 or as much as $2,000. Akoya saltwater pearls — round, white, pristine — are individually valued at anything up to $6,000 or more.

Tahitian pearls — darker and more exotic-looking — are even more valuable. They could net someone $500, but they could also go as high as $25,000. Finally, the most sought after pearls are the South Sea variety, which go for anywhere from $1,000 to $100,000. These are the most common variety of pearl, and are usually cultured.

For Maria, though, it’s not about the money. Michael admitted to NJ Advance Media, “She wants to put it in a piece of jewelry or something, but I’ve got to get it appraised first, to get some kind of value. It could be worth thousands, but I don’t know how much it’s worth. I really don’t know, and I’d like to know.” 

Maria reiterated her desire for the pearl to CBS News, adding that — for her — it was more about having a keepsake as opposed to making money. She said, “I would like to have it set into a nice piece of jewelry, maybe a mermaid or something nautical. It’s a beautiful remembrance of that day and what we have is so special.”

As per The Pearl Source, Maria may have hit on a very good idea. The website states that pearls stay valuable for a very long time because they’re extremely durable. So, encasing one in a piece of jewelry is potentially not only a beautiful family heirloom to pass down from generation to generation — it’s something that will likely increase in value over the years.

Understandably, when the pearly discovery made the news, The Lobster House’s profile was boosted. Keith Laudeman even got involved, telling TODAY Food, “People all over the country are calling me.” He also confirmed that all the publicity had worked wonders — business was on the up!

But how do pearls form? Well, they can be created in clams, mussels and oysters and they’re actually caused by an irritant — for example, a grain of sand — getting inside the shell. In effect, it’s an infection, and the mollusk shoots out liquid to try and protect itself. Over time that liquid hardens over the irritant and forms the pearl.

According to some experts, the odds of finding a pearl in your dinner are super-remote. For instance, when a customer at the Stern & Bow restaurant in North Jersey found one in an oyster, it stunned expert Kevin Joseph. He said, “I’ve shucked hundreds of thousands of oysters and have never found a pearl.”

In this case, it was a Taylor Kumamoto oyster, a type found in the cold waters of Washington State. Joseph again stressed his point by saying, “I've heard of pearls discovered in warm-water Gulf oysters, but never ever have I heard of a pearl found in a Kumo. It.s a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, though, are people like Josh Bedea. He shucks oysters for a living to supply the restaurants of Ocean County, and he doesn’t think finding a pearl is as rare as some experts let on. He told newspaper the Asbury Park Press, “It happens to people more often than you'd think.”

Two people from New York will definitely agree with Bedea — they found pearls in their oysters only weeks apart in December 2018! Rick Antosh was eating at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central on December 5 when he had the exact same scare as Michael Spressler. Antosh told TV station WPIX, “I just all of a sudden felt something like a tooth or a filling, and it’s terrifying.” 

“And then… I realized it’s not a tooth, it’s a pearl,” continued Antosh. He later called the restaurant to ask them if this kind of thing happened a lot, and the floor manager told him he didn’t know of it ever having happened before at the restaurant. Antosh’s pearl was initially valued at $4,000 — but this was later downgraded to $400.

Then, on December 18, Kristin Pulaski found one at the Maison Premiere bar in Williamsburg. She told newspaper the New York Post, “My first thought was, ‘Is this like a screw or something in here?’ And I took it out and saw that it couldn’t have been anything else [except a pearl]. It was pearly white and round.”

Unfortunately for Pulaski, her pearl was even less valuable than Antosh’s. She took it for appraisal at DSL Pearl in the city and was dealt a bit of a blow. Store owner Eddy Livi said, “Natural pearls can be very valuable, but when they come in shapes that are imperfect like this and don’t have that sheen, it would only be worth about $200.”

Getting back to Bedea, he claimed to have come across a lot of pearls in his time — albeit none with anywhere near the same potential value as the Spresslers’. He said, “I've only ever really found a few out of oysters. I've found many, many more from clams.” At the time of the interview, his most recent find was inside an oyster in western Canada.

“I've also found nice pearls out of clams that came out of Barnegat Bay,” continued Bedea, before explaining that these natural pearls aren’t always perfectly round and beautiful. He chuckled, “Most of the time, they're pretty lumpy. The thing is getting bigger and bigger inside it, and outside will be lumpier.”

Apparently, this same quality of lumpiness can be spotted on the outside of a clam or oyster. So, there you go — if you want to increase your chances of finding a priceless pearl, simply look inside the lumpiest, most unsightly clams you can find! You’ll probably still not find one, but at least you’ll think you’re approaching it tactically.

All in all, Eric Morris of marine food supplier Local 130 Seafood reiterated that the beautiful, perfectly round pearl found by the Spresslers was very much the exception to the rule. He said, “Calcium does form in oysters and clams, but rarely like it does in the pearl found [in The Lobster House].” Morris added, “We have yet to find a pearl in an oyster or clam, but we are trying every day!”

So, there you have it. Oh, and as a final reminder for anyone thinking pearls could be their ticket to a vast fortune, Forty North Oysters’ Matt Gregg can bring you crashing back down to Earth. He has found two in his time, but lamented, “They were very small, and I showed a jeweler. He said one was worth less than $3.” Not exactly retirement money!