This story was originally printed in Volume I of The Massachusetts Golfer, which was published in April 2024. The Massachusetts Golfer is a print publication, first and foremost, which is exclusively available, at no charge, to Mass Golf Members.
If you are a member and have not received a mailed copy (note that copies are limited to one per household), please update your address on file. Kindly direct any enquiries to Stephen Hanjack: shanjack@massgolf.org
Like contending with coastal winds on a seaside golf course, adaptability is key to chef Stephen Coe’s success. Owner of Lobsta Love food truck, a decorated competitive chef, and caterer to clients and clubs throughout Eastern Massachusetts, Coe has become a regular presence — and a welcome sight — at Mass Golf tournaments and special events in recent years.
When the COVID-19 outbreak put the 2020 golf season in question, Coe was newly the executive chef at Marshfield Country Club. “We never stopped. Immediately I said, ‘We can do curbside.’” At the pandemic’s peak, Coe estimates his small team was operating a half-dozen culinary concepts at golf courses around the South Shore and Cape Cod. There was his Lobsta Love food truck, which Coe had built out more than a decade earlier “for speed and volume,” as well as his “big dog” Culinary SWAT kitchen-on-wheels: a former Boston Police vehicle that he had retrofitted with a full, restaurant-ready cooking line.
But there were also 20-by-10-foot tents popping up next to tee boxes, outfitted with propane fryolators and generator-powered coolers, dishing up smash burgers, tater tots, and Philly-style cheesesteaks. There were mobile bars chilling Coronas for golfers at the turn. “We had large paella pans we were cooking out of and doing theme dinners outside on the courses,” Coe recalls. “At that point, it was like survival mode. But people still wanted to golf. So I’m like, ‘Alright, let’s just do cool things.’”
Coe grew up in Abington and graduated from the acclaimed culinary arts program at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. As a young cook, he staged (read: worked without pay) for a year at the illustrious Country Club in Brookline. One of his first weekends on the job was the 1999 Ryder Cup, an event hallmarked by a raucous crowd and what the late cultural critic Alistair Cooke lamented as “the arrival of the golf hooligan.”
For the hellaciously competitive Coe, the mayhem of that tournament was invigorating. The chef, who also had a part-time job then at a private chef company cooking for the likes of Patriots players and Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez, remembers serving Tiger Woods in the VIP lounge during the Ryder Cup and watching the American team win in frenzied fashion. It was Coe’s first taste of golf.
He ended up staying at The Country Club for a handful of years (thankfully, eventually, with pay), working long hours but golfing every Monday with fellow cooks, bartenders and service staff. “It was more of just finding my game each week we went out,” Coe says.
That’s not to say he’s much of a serious golfer these days. “I love going to driving ranges… and doing the ‘Happy Gilmore’ smash, just crushing it!”
Coe’s competition of choice is culinary. He got his position at The Country Club through the Boston-based branch of the American Culinary Federation, a professional organization that offers educational resources, training, and more to chefs and cooks — including access to world-renowned industry competitions. Since the 1990s, Coe has trained with ACF’s Culinary Team USA around Boston, and he’s currently working to establish a branch of the federation focused on the South Shore, he says.
In the early 2010s, Coe had his first taste of competitive television when he was tapped to enter a recipe contest hosted by Food Network star Tyler Florence — and won. His so-called Decon 3 — ribeye deconstructed three ways — matched the meaty heart, the fatty cap, and the marbled center of the steak with their own starchy sides, sauces, and garnishes. The trio “was just obnoxious,” Coe says, laughing at the memory of audacious accents like foie gras-tater tots. That win earned him a ticket to the World Food Championships, the pinnacle of culinary competition, with contests held annually in a variety of categories. In 2015, Coe earned the WFC title of Bacon World Champion.
Today, Coe is “pushing six” “Chopped” championships, including beating the Food Network’s celebrity slayer, Bobby Flay, in a special tournament series in 2020. “When I’m on point competing, I’m f——- on point, and you see it in that finale episode,” Coe says.
Aside from the busy events season approaching on and off the fairway, Coe is writing his first cookbook, “Lobsta Love,” and shopping around his own TV show, “Dangerous Eats,” which takes him to exotic locales to catch ingredients and prepare unique dishes (he literally wrestles a Florida alligator in one episode). Coe recently had the unique experience of appearing in a cameo role in a Hallmark original movie called “A Taste of Love.”
The chef, who lives with his family in Plymouth, purchased the well-established Early Bird Breakfast & Lunch diner in Kingston in 2023. It has remained open daily, but Coe has plans to subtly upgrade the menu and vibe “without making it too funky.” Ironically, he says owning a restaurant gives him “more time now than ever,” because the consistent morning hours allow him and his team a home base to prepare for myriad afternoon and evening events.
“No one else can touch what I do,” says Coe, a married father of three teens. “Cooking-wise, I trained hard. I do my homework. I can adapt. I read crowds.”
In other words, the chef is fully equipped for whatever hazards appear on his course.
