The iconic Warren’s Lobster House’s days in Kittery may be numbered following a sale announced last month, but the restaurant’s owners assured customers they are exploring other options, such as re-opening the longtime local eatery in another location.

The Cunningham family, which has owned and operated the restaurant for the past 40 years, announced in early August on its Facebook page that it was putting the property up for sale. In a statement, the family announced a recent flood and lingering impacts of the coronavirus pandemic had taken their toll.

“We don’t need to tell any of you how hard things have been and how much the ‘normal’ has changed,” the family wrote. “You have continued to support the business through all of the challenges and we cannot thank you enough for your patronage.”

The restaurant is located on Water Street, on the northern bank of the Piscataqua River in Kittery. The restaurant’s sign has been a perennial landmark to drivers on Route 1 coming over the Memorial Bridge from Portsmouth, N.H.

The family said on Aug. 8 that they had already entered into a sale agreement with a buyer whose name at the time was not disclosed. Just two days later, on Aug. 10, the new owners, Green & Company Real Estate, of North Hampton, N.H., brought a proposal before the Kittery Planning Board to build a complex that will include eight condominiums and a 20-slip marina. The proposal indicated the restaurant and other nearby properties the firm had acquired “are proposed to be demolished.”

The board voted 5-1 to accept the “sketch” plan for the project. No long-term timeline was available for the remainder of the approval process or when the restaurant would close, but the Cunningham family, in its statement, made clear that while it was selling the physical property, it retained the rights to the business itself.

The family did not say just what the restaurant’s future would hold, but noted that another longtime eatery in Portsmouth, The Golden Egg, which closed at its former home on Sagamore Avenue in 2020, famously re-opened in June 2023 on Mirona Road, with all the same recipes it had used in the past. The Cunningham family called the Golden Egg example “a very good parallel to future possibilities.”

Regardless, the family promised the restaurant would remain open “well into 2024.”