Topsail Steamer ‘Shark Tank’ update: Did the Jersey Shore at-home seafood steam pot shop get a deal?

OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Danielle Mahon has been up to her elbows in seafood since opening the Topsail Steamer, a take-out seafood steam pot shop. After launching her first store in North Carolina, she expanded to four locations at the Jersey Shore.

But on Friday, she went for the big catch: the sharks on Shark Tank.

The episode in which Mahon makes her pitch, looking happy and confident, her nerves betrayed only by the clench of her hands, aired Friday on ABC. She served the sharks seafood, dramatically spilling out of her signature steam pots onto the brown paper to a chorus of approval.

“People are emotionally attached to the brown paper,” said Mahon, 55, who held a corporate job in the life sciences before becoming an at-home seafood steam pot entrepreneur.

Expecting the Shark Tank bounce, the Topsail Steamer website was updated to offer a “Shark Bite Steamer Pot (”As Seen on Shark Tank”) for $199.95, including free shipping on Goldbelly.

Here’s a recap of the show, takeaways from an interview with Mahon prior to the airing of the show, and, spoiler alert, the outcome of the episode.

Did she get a shark? Did she get even more than one shark?

Mahon, who grew up in Marlton and Tabernacle, moved to North Carolina in 2003, where she visited a full-service restaurant that served to-go seafood steam kits in big black-and-white lobster pots that people took home and had to return later.

As she told the Sharks, that’s where Mahon had her lightbulb moment: a take-home seafood steam pot shop — seafood, sausage, veggies, seasoning — in a single-use take-home pot. Her idea was a disposable steam pot: you steam the food yourself with two cups of beer or water, and then discard the pot (or recycle, or repurpose for, say, holding flip-flops.)

But it was her upbringing at the Jersey Shore that she used on Friday to tell her story: memories of eating seafood at the beach, picking crabs, surrounded by family.

“Think about that feeling you get when you’re sharing a meal with friends and family while on vacation,” she told the Sharks. “I’m originally from New Jersey and some of my favorite memories are going down the Shore.”

The shark Mahon really wanted on the show was Barbara Corcoran, she said, but she faced some heavy hitters (and eaters): Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Kevin O’Leary, and Damond John. The guest judge was Todd Graves, cofounder of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers.

“We make it so easy with our bay buckets to steam at home, at the beach, tailgate, campground,” she said. “In 40 minutes you’ll have a mouthwatering seafood.”

Indeed, when she dramatically dumped the pot of seafood, andouille sausage, proprietary seasoning and vegetables onto the table with brown paper, she got a loud chorus of oohs and oh yeahs and aahs from the sharks.

Putting aside her request for $350,000 for an 8% share of her company, which she said made $5.7 million this year, up from $4.5 million, Cuban said: “Let’s eat.”

“I just tried the sausage,” Greiner said. “It’s delicious.”

Initially, Graves showed the most interest, though he questioned her plan to go the franchise route, saying a manager paid $100,000 would be a better partner than a franchisee. He made her an offer of $350,000 for a 20% share, which Mahon appeared to think was a bigger bite out of her company than she had anticipated.

(John punned that his offer was “a little shellfish.”)

But Greiner followed up soon after, proposing to go in with Graves on a double-shark deal. “It’s quite impressive,” she said. “You’ve done this all yourself.” (John showed the most interest in the lobster she served).

Mahon told the sharks she opened her first Topsail Steamer in 2017 on Topsail Island, N.C. Three years later, she expanded to the Jersey Shore. The company now franchises, and has 10 stores in all, including in Ocean City, Ship Bottom, Sea Isle City, and Wildwood. There’s one in Bethany Beach, Del., as well.

Earlier this month, she told the Inquirer, “I knew from what I knew about the Jersey Shore that this should be the next place to open,” she said. “We opened in 2020 in Ocean City, smack dab in the middle of COVID. Right away, we had lines out the door.”

Mahon sources locally whenever possible. In the South, it’s shrimp; in New Jersey, it’s scallops and oysters. Her menu features seven varieties of Bay Buckets. She hasn’t quite figured out how to incorporate blue claw crabs, but people ask.

She went on the show hoping for a partner “with the capital to be able to invest in technology, knowing there’s a possibility to help with the strategy and growth.”

In one of the photos from the show, you can see Mahon looks happy and confident, her nerves betrayed only by the death grip clench of her hands. It’s the only sign of how nervous she was, especially for the 90-second opening pitch that starts the moment you walk through those double doors.

On Friday, she was the first out of the gate.

“I was so nervous,” she said in an interview. “You have that 90-second pitch, there’s no do-overs, none. That’s it. They never stop the cameras rolling. Just that is so nerve-racking. It’s such a big opportunity.

In all, she said, the sharks were nicer to her than she thought they’d be, and seemed genuinely interested in her pitch. She had applied in January, and filmed in June in Los Angeles.

“I can say that they were all really excited by the product,” she said.

That was an understatement.

She said she was in the tank for about 45 minutes in all.

With her husband cooking offscreen, Mahon said, she served each shark their own little plate of food.

“In the middle of my 90 seconds, I did actually dump a pot of seafood,” she said. “I dumped it on the table next to me, on the brown paper. If you look at our menu, what we’re eating is the Wrightsville Bay Bucket [snow crab, large sea scallops, peel-and-eat shrimp, littleneck clams, andouille sausage, kielbasa, sweet corn, red bliss potatoes, onion] and added lobster.”

That will now be known as the “Shark Bite Bucket,” she said, in anticipation of a deluge of Shark Tank traffic.

After Graves’s initial offer, Greiner proposed that the two sharks split the 20%. She said Graves’ restaurant experience and her track record of lighting a fire under entrepreneurs would be the right combination.

But she said she Mahon, “I think you have another phenomenal route: D2C [direct to customer], giftable, seasonal.”

She compared the business to a deal she did with Boarderie, a cheese and charcuterie company. “In 18 months, we’ve done $50 million in sales.”

Mahon countered with 16%.

Graves countered back with 18%.

“Here’s the thing,” Greiner tells her. “We’re going to take you to the moon, and fast.”

“I’m ready to go to the moon,” Mahon said. And she took the deal.

Just like potatoes and andouille sausage, Mahon got a combination of sharks: Graves and Greiner.

After a group hug, where John is seen in the back grabbing another lobster tail, she walks off beaming.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I’m so excited to have Todd and Lori as sharks on board. To think we went from one store in 2017 to two sharks is just unbelievable.”

For now, New Jersey customers will have to wait until next summer to visit Topsail Steamer in-person as the stores are closed for the season.