Profile: Ray Kenna

Believe it or not, the Maine lobster, once considered a poor man’s food, is now the most sought-after and perhaps the costliest and most cherished seafood on the market or at restaurants. But back in the day, this delectable treat was once upon a time the food for poor people, servants, and prisoners. Centuries ago, lobsters were so abundant that Native Americans used them as fertilizer and for spiritual practices.

What changed the lobster’s appeal? With modern innovations that allowed canning and deliveries of fresh foods, fresh seafood became trendy, and lobsters became luxury items and have gained the number one spot in beloved seafood. The lobster’s popularity may well explain the booming business in Northern Virginia of Ray Kenna’s family business, Lobster Maine-ia.

Raised in a devout Irish Catholic family with nine siblings (one of whom is a priest in Northern Virginia), Ray Kenna noted how his Catholic faith has shaped his life.

“We were a faith-filled family,” he said, “and every decision was based on the daily Mass and the daily rosary. We attended church too, for the examination of conscience. And all our decisions are based on our faith”.

The Kenna family’s Sundays are packed as parishioners of Holy Trinity, Saint Rita’s, or Saint John the Beloved in McLean, Virginia because it still has the Latin Mass.

Perhaps God led Ray Kenna to the lobster business. As it turned out, his wife’s family is from Maine.

We can go up there every summer,” he said. “I got to know the waterman in the Sebago Lake, and he grew up with lobsters. So my family and I started out with lobsters wholesale for two years, doing retail on weekend. The business just evolved, and we moved onto selling scallops and then a full line of every type of seafood, from Chilean sea bass and shrimp to tuna and four different types of salmon.

Before Ray Kenna even started Lobster Maine-is, he remembers doing a big lobster fest for family and friends. ‘We used to have a big lobster feast with 300 to 400 lobsters from Maine,” he said.

My wife and I would roll in on Saturday night, and by 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, we had many guests. That’s when the waterman pushed me to go into the lobster business and that told me a lot about lobsters.

As stated on the website, https://lobstermaine-ia.com, in 2013, with his son Nick home from college, Ray Kenna began the process of creating Lobster Maine-ia, and it was a project that drew in the whole family. As the company flourished, Ray Kenna noted that the core business is now restaurants, farmers’ markets, wholesale, and private customers who come to their store in Chantilly, Virginia.

As Ray Kenna notes,

We run 20 to 40 delivers a day and have a few hundred restaurants as our wholesale customer base. Some of the restaurants include the Michelin Star  (name?) restaurant(s) in Washington, and most of our wholesale goes to chefs/owners of restaurants and many high-end country clubs. I am still managing the business, but two sons, Nick and Joseph, are partners in the business.  My other son and daughter who have graduated from college and have full-time jobs but also help out on weekends.

He added that the family plans to expand the business to multiple local restaurants and to additional farmers’ markets.