Of the twenty-five food vendors, only six were purveyors of seafood, and most were selling other carnival-type, fast food items including ice cream, barbeque, cannoli, gyros, roast beef, tacos, hot dogs and hamburgers.  

That would be fine, because not every member of the family likes seafood, but in 2022 only four or five of the Hampton Beach seafood vendors were actually local companies specializing in chowders and lobster rolls, and the largest of the “seafood” vendors, PC Event Services, a New Jersey convention food services operator (masquerading as four local seafood shacks), pictured above, served stringy lobster scooped out of a steam table pan, hot water and all, onto soggy, disintegrating hot dog buns, an insult to any visitor who had his or her first lobster roll there, who would never have another.  Our editors ordered lobster rolls and other items like jambalaya from this major vendor, and found them astonishingly, if not to say embarrassingly substandard, and we hope they’re not invited back.