Local Restaurants Participate In National Oyster Day

In honor of National Oyster Day, the Oyster Recovery Partnership hosted its second Give Back to the Bay campaign.

The campaign lasted one day, August 5. It asked the restaurants around Delaware, Maryland and Virginia — those that are part of the Oyster Recovery Partnership’s Shell Recycling Alliance — to donate 10 cents to ORP for every oyster sold. Each oyster sold will fund the planting of 10 baby oysters in the Chesapeake Bay.

There was a minimum donation of $100 from each participating restaurant.

“We had immediate responses come in, people really excited, they wanted their marketing materials,” said Kate Cwiek, the marketing director at the Oyster Recovery Partnership. “Social media really blew up [Sunday] and in the days leading up: people putting up a lot of photos, and encouraging people to come in and take advantage of the campaign. Everything was more so than last year, so that was exciting.”

Last year’s campaign had about 60 restaurants participating. This year, more than 100 restaurants participated in National Oyster Day.

Local restaurants included Mike’s Crab House North, Brian Boru Irish Restaurant and Pub, and Mother’s Peninsula Grille.

“We get into it because they do the [shell] recycling program. They came down to talk to us and they showed us how the shells they save are used to plant more spat and clean the bay,” said Tony Piera, owner of Mike’s Crab House North. “They’re making the bay better. It’s a win-win situation for everybody who’s in the seafood business.”

Mike’s Crab House in Riva sold roughly 1,600 oysters, and the Pasadena location sold roughly 600 oysters on National Oyster Day, Piera said. This is about a 10 percent increase to their daily sales, he added.

“[The customers] think it’s pretty cool. The servers talked to them about the campaign,” Piera said. “I think anything to help the environment, people are excited about.”

Mother’s Peninsula Grille started serving oysters this year. Mother’s sold 77 oysters on National Oyster Day, which is a little higher than usual, said owner Dave Rather.

“People around Arnold live on the water, spend a lot of time on the water,” Rather said. “They want to do whatever they can to help, even if it’s a few more oysters contributing to the cause, they’re all for it.”

In addition to the restaurants’ donations, distributer Congressional Seafood committed to matching the donations of the restaurants they represent, Cwiek said.

The plantings funded by National Oyster Day will go toward the large-scale oyster restoration efforts in the Chesapeake Bay, not specific reefs, Cwiek said.

The Shell Recycling Alliance was created in 2010 and reclaims oyster shells free of charge from participating restaurants. These shells then go through the cleaning and treatment process before being planted with baby oysters back into the bay.

The Oyster Recovery Partnership will make an official announcement of how many oysters were sold and how much money was raised when it has the totals, which will take one to two months, Cwiek said.