Atlantic City Area Restaurants & Now Extinct Oyster Crackers (OTC)

I used to just love these crackers.

Great restaurants like Dock’s Oyster House in Atlantic City, New Jersey and The Crab Trap in Somers Point and so many other Atlantic City area restaurants featured them on a daily basis.

When you sat down at your table, these wonderful Original Trenton Crackers (OTC) were waiting for you, along with fresh Horseradish.

It was named oyster cracker because it was made to have with oyster stews.

You no longer can experience this great treat because the one and only company that made the Original Trenton Cracker can no longer make their famous product that launched in Trenton, New Jersey in 1847 by Adam Exton, who was an English immigrant.

On July 12, 2018, Ken Meyers, President of Panorama Foods, Inc. explained in a Facebook post why the popular Oyster Crackers could no longer be made.

Unfortunately, the old equipment that created the unique OTC shape is no longer useable under new, stricter food safety regulations and recreating a custom machine of this sort is simply not possible for a small company such as Panorama Foods. Given that, the original shape is, likely, gone forever.

This resulted in not just losing the shape of the cracker, but, the taste and texture of the Original Trenton Cracker.

Several years ago, there was hope that this beloved Original Trenton Cracker was going to come back … but, it hasn’t happened, yet.

Meyer’s said that “we will keep trying and, while it is distressing whenever disappointing our long standing, loyal customers, it is very helpful to hear the specifics of what you note as different so we can continue to zero in on the adjustments necessary to bring the OTC Oyster Cracker back as close to the original as possible.”

Meyer’s also mentioned that, “Oddly, we have learned through this experience that, in baking, this can be a bit of a "trial and error" process even though the recipe and ingredients are exactly the same. Any minor change in environment, water quality, equipment or process can have an impact on the finished product that can become quite a mystery to unravel.”

The Atlantic City bread that Formica- Freitag and Rando makes knows this kind of atmospherics all too well.

We can’t find any recent reports about the status and return of this product.

Directly below, we have photo galleries featuring listener and reader cell phone photos of their favorite food items, along with area restaurants.

Bon appétit.