“I wanted to take Sonny’s portrait as he was helping a customer. His warm, genuine smile really says everything. After 55 years of selling lobsters and working with the public, he’s still smiling.”

Sonny Hutchins was born in Biddeford, Maine, and raised in Kennebunkport. He has never lived anyplace else except for the two years he served in the U. S. Army.  He joined Wildwood Fire Company in 1945, while he was still in high school. Because there was not a lot of manpower to fight fires back then, he recalls being excused from class whenever the fire horn sounded.

Hutchins tried his hand at lobstering for a year or two but decided to open a lobster pound instead, because he felt he was not suited to hours out on the ocean. He founded Port Lobster Company in 1953 and quickly learned that he “had to work even more hours at the pound” due to the perishable nature of the product.

Today, Hutchins’ year-round retail and wholesale lobster, fish and seafood operations are still family-owned. Port Lobster Company is in its third generation and remains in the same location since its founding. Hutchins buys direct from local fisherman and other lobster dealers further up the Maine coast and takes great pride in serving his customers the freshest seafood that Maine has to offer. On loan from Sonny Hutchins was a lobster buoy.

“The Kennebunks represent. . . oh, let me think. Born and brought up here. It’s a way of life. It’s different. It’s not a fast pace. It’s not like city life—not by a long shot.”