The Lobster Shift: Alpha Donuts, Where Cabbies Go For Irish Breakfast and Crullers

The city’s lobster shift workers find sustenance when and where they can. Photo: Kenneth Rosen
My days begin after dark. I sleep in the dark, I wake in the dark, I work in the dark and, seemingly always, I eat in the dark.
For more than a year I’ve worked the Lobster Shift at The New York Times, a tenuous overnight stint at our office building in Times Square. The origins of the name are highly disputed, though it is agreed that the term appeared in the 1940s. My favorite story is t