Shuck Your Own Oysters at Hog Island Oyster Company – Marshall, California

October 2016

Shuck Your Own Oysters at Hog Island Oyster Company – Marshall, California

On one of our trips to San Francisco, we decided to steer away from our typical day trip to Napa/Sonoma and decided to venture to Point Reyes. Kevin found a gem while researching ways to fill out our day- Hog Island Oyster Company.

This oyster farm was not a far drive from the Point Reyes hiking and while parking was extremely limited, we found a spot down the highway for our 1PM reservation (and yes, you need reservations for this place).

We started with a one hour tour of the farm, learned about the farming techniques, and finishing by a tutorial on how to shuck an oyster- not as easy as it looks at oyster happy hours! After, we were brought to our picnic area where we had a grill and table for a full on oyster fest.

Looking around, we came significantly unprepared! While we did have a bottle of wine, the tables around us had their grills fired up and complete picnic accompaniments not just for the oysters, but for an entire meal.

We put in our order of oysters, which ranged from type and size of oyster, of three dozen medium oysters in total. Kevin and I can eat two dozen at an oyster happy hour ourselves so we figured this number did not feel unreasonable… Until we saw the size of the oysters. Happy hour oysters are about half the size of the medium oysters we ordered. Armed with our shucking gloves and knife, we spent the next hour perfecting the shucking technique. I think we had our fill of oysters for the next year! Such a fun experience!

This was such a fun and unique experience that we would all highly recommend! The tour was informative we became expert shuckers with the biggest oysters we have seen. We are so glad we traveled outside the city for the day to explore!