A couple feasted their way to fortune after they found a pearl potentially worth thousands in a clam while dining in their favorite restaurant.
The couple have been going to The Lobster House Restaurant in Cape May, New Jersey, for 34 years but their last visit was truly special.
After the couple ordered clams on the half shell, Michael Spressler started feasting on their order. When he was almost finished eating, he noticed something unusual in one of the clams.
He said he thought that the clam was heavier than usual, but he did not think any of it. Then, when he started to eat, he noticed something was in his mouth. He thought his tooth broke.
His wife, Maria Spressler described the experience "once in a lifetime event."
Pretty rare
The restaurant owner, Keith Laudeman, in an interview with Today Food explained that the incident was "pretty rare."
Over the years, he said they have seen small pearls but not as big as this one.
The Lobster House Restaurant posted on its Facebook page the rare pearl find and many of the customers were amazed. Some skeptics thought that only oysters created pearls, but the restaurant corrected it.
On its Facebook account, the restaurant explained that oysters and clams both produce pearls. Pearls, they added are most common in oysters but clams and mussels have it too. "It is the bivalve's reaction to debris or grit," the post said.
Laudeman, the family that has been running the restaurant for the past 100 years said that he is surprised that the story went viral.
He said people all over the country have been calling him adding that the rare find was good for his business.
According to Micheal Spressler, he has been eating clams all his life but this is the first time that something like this happened.
The Spresslers are longtime customers of The Lobster House Restaurant, and they were in the in the restaurant that day to celebrate their 34 years of visiting the place.
The couple shared that they first came to the restaurant on the Presidents' Day weekend in 1987.
Pricy souvenir
The Spresslers got themselves a potentially pricy souvenir that day: a 8.8-millimeter pearl would sell for thousand. However, the couple does not plan to sell it.
The wife said she would like to set it into a nice piece of jewelry. She said that it was a beautiful remembrance of that day, reminding them that what they had was so special. However, the husband says he is more interested in finding out the value of the pearl which collectors estimates as "worth thousands."
The stone could be from $50 to $100,000, depending on the body of water it originated from, the New York Post said.
In 2018, a NJ man also found a pearl worth thousands in his oyster stew at the Grand Central Oyster Bar.
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