Overview:
A dozen oysters for $15. are featured on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
“Oyster Night,” a beloved tradition for epicureans of the raw crustacean, is back at Mortimer’s restaurant.
And, you might say, bringing Oyster Night back is synonimous with finding a pearl.
They’re shelling out (pardon the pun) hundreds of oysters for $1.25 each or $15 a dozen beginning at 4 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the restaurant at 590 North Perkins Road. ”Which is a heck of a deal,” says Mortimer’s owner Christopher Jamieson. He say he knows of at least one local restaurant where oysters are being sold for $30 a dozen.
The restaurant began Oyster Night almost 40 years ago, Jamieson says. Oysters were 10 cents each, then. “Then they were 20 cents, 40 cents. Right before Covid we were doing dollar oysters twice a week. After Covid, with the cost of everything, we couldn’t really do it anymore.”
Those nights “were always very busy nights for us,” Jamieson says. “People love their oysters.”
For years, people kept asking Jamieson for “Oyster Night” to return. To which Jamieson responded, “As soon as I can get the price right.”
And, he adds, “You had to find somebody to shuck them. Someone who will stand back there for several hours and shuck them for as long as they can.”
Jamieson says he found an oyster with a price that enables him to make Oyster Night work. And he found an oyster shucker.
Oyster Night returned on Saturday, March 28th. “Prior to Covid we’d do 20 cases on a Saturday night, which is a couple of thousand oysters. That’s a lot of oysters to shuck. So, I didn’t know what to expect at first.”
Jamieson and his wife, Ashley, showed up that first night. “There was a line out the door at 5:15 p.m,” he says. They couldn’t get in the front door because it was so crowded They had to take their family through the kitchen door.
Ashley began working the front of the house and Christopher got behind the bar.
“We sold out of 12 cases by 7:00 p.m.” says Jamieson.
He’s now up to 15 cases a week, Christopher says. “I’ve been upping the par. It’s going to be a bit of a learning curve to see what we settle into. I can get oysters shipped in six days a week.”
The oysters are served with crackers, homemade cocktail sauce, raw horseradish, and lemon. And Oyster Night is still going strong. Christopher has had to bring in extra bartenders.
Note: Oyster lovers should arrive “before 6:30 p.m. for sure” on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Christopher says.
