I’m here to say that if you sell raw oysters at a restaurant that your margins are better than guys who sell cocaine. I am in Lafayette, LA right now. I just bought a 45 pound sack of oysters for $58 (that were harvested this morning):
And yet still, at the Cajun seafood places that are myriad within a half-mile radius, the going rate for shucked raw oysters is ~$15.95 for a half dozen. In my 45 pound sack, there are hundreds of them. But oh! you say!! I’m in Maine and our extra special ____ogue oysters, they are way better than those crappy gulf oysters. Guess what, yours are $15 for a half dozen at a restaurant as well (I lived in Maine up until three years ago!) Humor yourself and wonder how much a 45 pound sack/bushel costs if you know how to buy them from the right guy.
There is simply no way that these Boudreaux and Thibidoux backcountry Cajun boys down here have figured out a way to sell oysters at a profit margin that blows away the profit margin commanded by all other oyster markets in America. Call my cynical but I gotta guess that the margins at all the fancy places on the Maine coast, or the Washington state coast, are just as ridiculously fat as they are in south Louisiana.
I stop here every time I am near the Chesapeake bay bridge on Kent Narrows. 100 for $50 and they are the largest oysters I’ve ever seen (but not the briniest):
But I can’t imagine he’d need to come as far as Lafayette (two hours to the west) from NO to get a very cheap bushel sack of oysters. I’m sure they are just as cheap in any of the seafood markets in Baton Rouge (one hour to the west) of NO. Tell your friend to stop going to Whole Foods for oysters and start doing some internet research on how to buy oysters by the bushel/blk/sack and the I’m sure he’ll find the same deal for $50-$70 for literally HUNDREDS of harvested-thst-day oysters.
The fancy Murder Points that are farm raised without a speck of mud on them are $100 for 10 dozen. Which is worth the upcharge not to have to deal with clusters and mud.
But yeah I’m used to paying $10/ dozen raw in a bar. $18/ dozen grilled.
I bought Murder Points once and I thought they tasted good but were tiny in size. Whatever strain/breed of oyster it is, they are significantly smaller than a typical gulf oyster.
