O.K., I'm a bit bummed.
Yesterday The Wine Country put on our annual Oyster Fest wine tasting and only a handful of folks came out for such an extraordinary event.
The oysters were in season and were acquired from an impeccable source: Santa Monica Seafood. For three hours beforehand nearly a thousand oysters were shucked by my wife Dale and Ronnie Grant, our Italian and Spanish wine buyer. A homemade mignonette sauce, a cocktail sauce and fresh lemons were available, as they have been each of the past eight or nine years we've been hosting these shindigs. Each fresh oyster cost our customers a paltry $1.67 apiece, so it was affordable. We served our oysters with 10 perfectly crisp white wines, including Champagne, Sancerre, Muscadet, Chablis and a host of other racy whites. Everyone who attended was happy as (shall I say it?) a clam.
So why was the event such a bust?
I have some theories:
1. Despite the fact that October saw the biggest gains on Wall Street in over 20 years, everybody knows the economy in the real world stills sucks a big one. People don't have much money to spend on things as frivolous as an oyster and wine tasting.
2. We didn't advertise the event in our local newspapers.
3. People have a lot they can do on a Saturday in Southern California, unlike places like Nebraska where everyone in the state goes to a college football game. Perhaps we were too busy having fun outdoors in our 81 degree weather to bother with an indoor event.
4. Long Beach (a suburb of Los Angeles once known as "Iowa-by-the-sea") isn't as receptive to the joys of raw oysters and crisp white wine as, say, all of Europe. In fact, not very many places in the U.S. are, excepting San Francisco, New Orleans, Seattle and New York City.
A lot has been written on that subject of oysters. Perhaps the answer lies in the literary world.
“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”
—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (1957)
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster. —Jonathan Swift
But whether husband, pal, or wife,
It leads a soothing sort of life.
I'd like to be an oyster, say,
In August, June, July, or May.
—Ogden Nash
Perhaps nothing sums up eating an oyster for many of us better than this short video:
Last night Dale and I were guests of Tom and Pat Reep at the Long Beach Symphony Pops concert. We brought some leftover oysters, a bottle of Muscadet and a bottle of Sancerre for a pre-concert degustation. Tom scarfed up those suckers like it was his last meal. "I really wanted to come to your Oyster Fest," he said. "But I had too much to do."
While waiting in line for the men's room during intermission, I ran into not fewer than three customers who told me they, too, wanted to drop by for some oysters, but life got in the way.
So perhaps oysters and crisp white wine are something that more people appreciate than I thought, but still ranks down several notches on people's things-to-do-on-a-sunny-October-Saturday list.
For those of us who were there, it ranked quite up there.
4 comments:
Hi Randy, thanks for this post and so sorry the Oyster Fest was not what you had hoped. I agree with you that it's the economic mood. For instance, even though the Dow Jones was up so much last week, this week it's down everything it gained last week because again we're insecure about the Greek default situation (why should we care in Long Beach? because we should?!?) I don't know if my personal situation is the same as others, but I felt perhaps that I should be working and being productive, storing up for the winter like a squirrel instead of kicking back and enjoying like a cricket (grasshopper?) On second thought, I don't think I am alone in this. In better times, I think many of us go ahead and enjoy the company of friends, drink good wine and consume delectable delights. But in times like these we feel a certain sense that we should be productive on a Saturday afternoon, in case tough times hit again.
And, like you said, the weather was unseasonably ridiculously beautiful out, so perhaps that could have been more the reason than fiscal angst.
Bummer it didn't work out! Maybe try again with something besides oysters?
Nancy:
You're right on all counts.
Kovas:
You've got a point there. Oysters are not a universal pleasure. We tried chocolate and red wine and that didn't work out, either. Every once in a while Samantha Dugan offers a Champagne and fried chicken night, and that seems to be a hit.
I'm sorry the turnout wasn't as hoped for, Randy. You guys put in a lot of much-appreciated effort, and it was a terrific event. But is the economy really a factor in this case? Yeah, there's a downturn, obviously. But we're not talking about weighing the long term consequences and opportunity cost of buying new cars, flat-screen TVs, real estate, diamonds or world cruises here! We're talking about spending twenty or thirty bucks on a weekend, at lunch time! A meal at In-N-Out is gonna set you back $7 or $8, and they seem pretty crowded! A movie with popcorn and a soda is more than $20, and they have lines out the door! Within the demographic you serve, I don't think $20 is a deal-breaker.
So what is it, then?
I think oysters, surprisingly, aren't as popular as those of us who love them expect them to be.
I recently checked in with a popular seafood restaurant in Newport Beach that has a great selection of oysters and very low corkage, with the idea of taking a room for eight to ten people and bringing our own wine and eating their oysters. This is a place that does probably 400-600 covers on a weekend night, maybe 120-200 during the week. They suggested if we were looking at more than a dozen and a half oysters per person, we should probably CALL THREE DAYS AHEAD TO ENSURE AVAILABILITY! So beyond ten dozen would crimp their style...and this place has a popular raw bar! That tells this restaurateur that the restaurant doesn't expect more than 5% of their customers to be interested in eating oysters in a given evening. Might be closer to three percent.
Now let's say "The Pool Of All Customers Who Attend Saturday Events at The Wine Country" is EQUALLY LIKELY to eat oysters as "The Pool Of All Customers Already Seated In and Committed To Dining In A Moderately Priced Popular Seafood Restaurant With A Raw Bar On A Saturday Night." If so, I'd expect to see a 3%-5% response from either group, all things being equal.
I know you don't usually require reservations for Saturday events, but I'd respectfully suggest you consider requiring reservations for your next Oyster Fest.
And thanks again for a truly special event, with wonderful oysters and impeccable wine pairings presented by your gifted, passionate staff. From what I saw that afternoon, everyone in attendance had the time of their lives.
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