Joey De Mare has been working with oysters for over a decade. He started as a shucker at Pearlz Oyster Bar where he, admittedly, got pretty good at shucking. After some time managing restaurants he met Trey McMillan, the owner of Lowcountry Oyster Company (LowCo.). He’s been a farm manager with the company for four years.
De Mare missed the restaurant scene, though, and he wanted to create something all his own. De Mare Raw Bar was born.
De Mare spends his days harvesting oysters and his evenings serving them at pop-ups at a variety of locations, from Odyssey Bottle Shop to Munkle Brewing Co. to Get Carried Away Southern Market.
“The main thing is always having our oysters that we grow,” said De Mare on the importance of utilizing local seafood at his pop-ups. And while he’ll bring in some other Southeastern varieties of oysters, his emphasis will always be on locally sourced seafood. “I feel like a lot of places in Charleston say that their seafood is local, and then when you really dig a little deeper, it’s just not.”
Power of the pop-up
De Mare joins an ever-growing Charleston roster of fresh, inventive pop-up concepts. As Charleston City Paper has written before, pop-ups are not a new trend, but they are having a moment in a city filled to the brim with dining options.
And De Mare said that the response to his raw bar, from both hosts and guests, has been overwhelmingly positive. There’s something celebratory about ordering an oyster and watching it get shucked and dressed right before your eyes.
He said that one pop-up perk is getting face time with customers and “being able to see the fruits of your labor, that people are enjoying the stuff that you’re able to grow.”
De Mare has noticed an increase in the popularity of raw bars in the city since his days shucking at Pearlz, back when that East Bay stalwart was one of the few raw bar options in town. “I feel like [oysters have] become a staple here in Charleston. It’s getting known for it and rightfully so,” he said. “It’s a … beautiful thing, and it’s a very sustainable protein.”
De Mare Raw Bar always features LowCo. Oysters with a variety of mignonettes (and the tantalizing option to add caviar, creme fraiche and chive oil to an oyster for just $5) and a rotating roster of other seafood, like tuna tartare, shrimp cocktail and bay scallop ceviche. You can find the raw bar around town throughout the week — check Instagram @de_marerawchs for the most up-to-date schedule — and at The Perch at Get Carried Away Southern Market from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. every Saturday.
De Mare has been offering an oyster happy hour at his pop-ups, serving up
$2 oysters. “It’s fun, and it’s bringing it back to that price range … that people expect [happy hour] to be,” he said.
Those happy hour oysters are reminiscent of De Mare’s days at Pearlz, where he eventually mastered the art of shucking, after some initial struggles. “I didn’t love it for the first couple of months,” he said. “As I got older, you just find more appreciation for it. … Since I’m with LowCo., you see everything grow. I’m part of growing [oysters] from seed, and I facilitate that all the way up until they’re full grown and watch it go out the door. It’s awesome.”
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