Swan Restaurant c. 1880 — Moss Freland, Owner
Well, probably not everybody… probably not even every tourist who comes to town… but you can bet your last ten dollar gold piece that a good number of people who visit Oysterville around the lunch hour or dinner time is sure to ask, “Where’s the best place in town to get oysters?” Usually, they are talking about a prepared meal — a plate of fried oysters or a serving of oysters on the half shell. Once in a while someone also remembers the “all you can eat” oyster dinners that Nanci and Jimella’s Ark Restaurant used to serve in nearby Nahcotta.
The Heckes Inn, c. 1930
Sad to say, of course, there’s ‘nary a restaurant in town. Hasn’t been since the old Swan Restaurant closed down back in the 1880s or 1890s. They undoubtedly served the little native Willapa Bay oysters on the half shell and maybe even offered a version of Mother Almira Stevens’ (of Stevens Hotel fame) oyster pie.
I know the Heckes Inn served oysters to their summer boarders in the 1920s and ’30s. They were fresh every day, brought from the beds by young Glen Heckes. The Inn got several wonderful write-ups over the years by food critic Duncan Hines’ in his column, Adventures in Good Eating at Home, which appeared in newspapers all across the US.
Oysterville Sea Farms, c. 2018
More recently, Dan Driscoll tried mightily to get the County’s okay to let people sit on the deck at Oysterville Sea Farms so they could enjoy the view while partaking of oyster shooters and maybe some bread and cheese. The County, in a fit of Bureaucratic Bullying, fought him through two long, ugly lawsuits and, by the time he won… well, things just weren’t the same.
Apparently, Sea Farms’ new owners (who are calling the business “Willapa Wild”) got their restaurant permits right away. Go figure. The Oyster Shell Telegraph has it that they will be offering stunning wines at $500 a bottle and food with prices to match. If those are “true rumors,” I’ll still be hard-pressed to know how to answer most of the tourists wanting directions to the best place in Oysterville to get oysters…
