The raw bar is getting pricier. | Brooke Olsen
One dollar oysters are disappearing. Here’s why.
Whether served raw on the half-shell, chargrilled, or Rockefeller style, there’s no denying the briny appeal of a perfect fresh oyster. Over the past few decades, more and more diners have heard the gospel of great oysters and, as a result, demand for the bivalves has skyrocketed in recent years. As a result of their rising popularity, the price of these oceanic creatures has also risen. Dollar oyster promotions used to dominate the landscape, but those have become increasingly rare, and now diners can expect to pay at least $3 for a single quality oyster, even during many happy hours.
At places like the Lonely Oyster in Los Angeles, you could pay as much as $6 for a sustainably sourced Blue Pool oyster pulled from the waters of Hama Hama, Washington. And while some may chalk these sometimes eye-popping prices up to historic inflation or price-gouging on the behalf of restaurants or their suppliers, the factors that go into oyster pricing are actually much more complicated than that. It used to be that the vast majority of oysters were caught wild, but due to a wide range of issues like overfishing and pollution, the global oyster population has declined by an estimated 85 percent over the last hundred years.
As a result, oyster farmers on all three American coasts have stepped in to meet the demand, and oyster farming is a whole lot more difficult than you might expect. Before an oyster even makes it onto one of those fancy towers at your favorite seafood restaurants, there’s a whole lot of money — and labor — that goes into that tiny shell.
How, exactly, are oysters raised?
There are two different ways to raise oysters. You can raise them “on-bottom,” which means growing seed oysters directly on the ocean floor. There’s also “off-bottom” oyster farming, in which oysters are grown in bags or cages that float in a body of water. According to the Massachusetts Oyster Project, both of those methods have advantages and drawbacks. Bottom-raised oysters have stronger shells that hold up better during processing, but may be more vulnerable to predators or being buried by shifting sea sediment. Oysters grown off-bottom are safer from predators, and the method is believed to produce a cleaner oyster that’s easier to get to market.
It takes at least a year and a half — and sometimes as long as three years — to grow a quality oyster, and that plays a major role in the cost. Hog Island Oyster Company founder John Finger has been raising oysters since 1983, when he started farming what he calls “the world’s most sustainable animal protein” in California’s Tomales Bay. The Hog Island operation has since expanded to more than 250 acres of intertidal lands in the region, raising five different varieties of oysters, and Finger has a lot of experience with the challenges unique to his industry, chief among them the labor required to produce great oysters. “There’s so much that goes into handling oysters, from catching them to washing them to sorting them,” he says. “Labor is your biggest expense, and it’s a lot of work to raise good oysters,” he says. “We’re selling raw animal protein, and we want to make sure we’re taking extra care to make sure that they’re in as good a condition and as safe as they can possibly be for people to eat.”
Brooke Olsen
Numerous processes occur to ensure oysters are safe to eat in restaurants.
Equipment, too, is a major issue in Finger’s operation. Oyster farmers are at the mercy of the sea, and it’s not uncommon for the equipment used to grow the oysters to be broken by harsh waves or blown away in a storm. Salt water is corrosive, and the boats used to retrieve the oysters from their floating farms require constant maintenance after being battered by the ocean. Many oyster farmers also have a vested interest in keeping the waters in which their oysters are grown clean and healthy, and that takes work. “Our friends at the Hama Hama Oyster Farm in Washington shepherd all the runoff coming from the Olympic Mountains to improve their watershed,” says Dom Crisp, a Los Angeles chef and oyster enthusiast. “They farm timber to help sequester carbon and generally improve the environment around them. There’s a lot of nuances to oyster farming that go far beyond growing these seeds in some shells in the water.”
Once the oysters are finally ready to go to market, they must be kept fresh and sanitary, which necessitates chilled wet storage systems with UV sterilization and an intensive sorting process to ensure only the best oysters make it to market. Some oyster farmers, like Hog Island, sell directly to restaurants and wholesale retailers, while others work with a distributor who helps get their product to market.
Why is it so hard to find $1 oysters these days?
In the simplest terms, it’s very difficult for restaurants to turn a profit on dollar oyster promotions. At Sweet Catch, an oyster bar in Brooklyn, owner Kawana Jefferson still has a $1 oyster happy hour promotion on the menu, but when oyster prices are high, that promotion comes at a loss. “When oysters are costing 90 cents wholesale, once you add the accoutrements, you’re taking a loss. That worked for us because it was a draw for customers, but if that price kept going up, we wouldn’t be able to get away with still charging a dollar each,” she says. “If prices started to soar, we would have to revisit that promotion.” Labor, too, is a factor — staff have to be trained to meticulously shuck oysters, which takes skill and a lot of time.
In some cities, like Boston, dollar oyster promotions persist widely — and that, on some level, makes total sense. New England is a hub of oyster production, which means that the oysters don’t have to be kept fresh for days or shipped overnight to a restaurant in another state. In my home city of Dallas, though, every East Coast oyster is traveling hundreds of miles to make it to my plate, which is why I’m more likely to see a Wellfleet or Blue Point oyster priced at $3 or more at a restaurant here.
Some people think that’s a good thing, and that the $1 oyster should become a thing of the past, largely because oyster farmers deserve to be compensated well for the work they’re putting in. When costs are high, some restaurants may be inclined to cut corners, and that’s especially dangerous when you’re talking about raw seafood. “I don’t think people realize that a $1 oyster is almost like playing Russian roulette,” says Michael Leavitt, the co-founder of California Seafood Company, a shellfish distributor based in Venice, California. “If you go to a nice oyster bar, somewhere you know the oysters are going to be pricey, there’s a level of intention there that protects the consumer that you don’t see at these places that are just serving as many oysters as they can sell.”
Katrina Moite
Sweet Catch still has a $1 oyster happy hour promotion on the menu, but when oyster prices are high, that promotion comes at a loss.
Is it ever worth paying $5 — or more — for an oyster?
Los Angeles chef Dom Crisp, an oyster enthusiast and the mind behind the forthcoming Dom’s Taverna in Santa Barbara, says that he’d pay as much as $10 for an oyster — but it has to be really great, like an imported French oyster or a rare domestic catch. “Oysters are very much like fine wine,” he says. “They take time, it’s like they’re bottling a nice vintage inside that shell. There’s a level of consistency from oyster to oyster, and that’s really special.” As a chef, he wants an oyster that really tastes like an oyster, with subtle flavor notes that he can highlight with accompanying ingredients, and an oyster that comes from a farmer who’s really invested in keeping the waters where they raise their product as pristine and healthy as possible.
It’s long been the case that East Coast and West Coast oysters are viewed as premium oysters, while oysters from the Gulf are seen as more pedestrian, and therefore should be cheaper. Gulf oysters are larger, and most customers prefer a smaller oyster, one that can be eaten in a single bite. Gulf oysters are also grown in warmer waters, which produces a different, less briny flavor profile than the cooler waters on the East and West coasts. But for Julia Sullivan, the chef at Nashville’s Henrietta Red, the Gulf oyster is officially ready for its moment in the sun. Sullivan is on the board of Oyster South, a nonprofit devoted to empowering Southern oyster farmers, and serves oysters from all three coasts on her menu. “I know people who own very renowned oyster bars who will not eat Gulf oysters, and that’s just an outdated perception,” she says. “There’s a lot of really great Southern oysters being grown, and people should try them.”
Are oysters just going to keep getting more expensive?
Probably. Demand for oysters shows no signs of slowing down, and the costs continue to rise. Tariffs on Canada and other countries are expected to increase prices further, especially as equipment becomes more expensive to buy and maintain. It’s also likely that climate change will have an outsized impact on oysters in the coming years, making the supply more difficult to predict.
