Theo Bougas leaned against the bar at his South Boston restaurant, Publico, on a swampy evening last month and admired a familiar view: oyster fanatics as far as his eye can see. To his left sat a couple in their early 20s, chomping at two dozen bivalves in what they’ve made a weekly tradition. Another table hosted a mother introducing her 7-year-old to the meaty treat. At a third, a few newly minted friends downed 72 oysters with Fiddlehead IPAs and chicken wings.
“We die for oysters,” said one, rather seriously. “Especially when they’re a dollar.”
Bougas knows it. Every Tuesday, he sells roughly 2,000 oysters in an all-day $1 promotional deal that has withstood an otherwise rocky time in the food business.
“Yeah, you make no money selling oysters for a buck,” he said. “But as far as I’m concerned, I get to watch an eating contest, and it’s part of our identity in New England. What are we going to do? Get rid of it?”
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Loads of places agree. Publico is one of at least 25 restaurants and bars in Greater Boston still offering dollar oyster deals, according to a recent roundup by Boston.com. But our high-priced times are forcing some businesses to rethink their approach to the staple promo.
The sticker price of $1 oysters has scarcely ever covered the cost of acquiring and serving them, since they first became popular in Boston — somewhere around the ‘90s or early 2000s, according to industry insiders’ estimates. Those pressures are only amplified now: Food prices are soaring. Customers are pinching their dollar bills. And one-fifth of Bay State restaurants are on the brink of closure, according to a February study from Mass Restaurants United.
Restaurants now buy oysters in 100-count bags for between 65 cents and $1.15 per piece, and then chip in a bit more for labor and distribution. All-in-all, the dollar deal is a formula to lose money, rather than make it.
Yet the the intrigue of this fossil-esque food — either delectable or disgusting, depending on whom you ask — cannot be undersold, said Alexis Cervasio, founder of East Boston Oysters and its pop-up events. And so the buck-a-shuck deal persists.
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“It’s this mysterious rock-looking thing that comes from the ocean and tastes like the ocean. It’s a phenomenon,” she said. “And phenomena don’t just disappear.”
In fact, restaurants have long turned to appetizer deals to get people through the door and entice them to rack up the check. That strategy works especially well in Massachusetts, where happy hour-style drink specials are outlawed, despite recent efforts to revive them. Given our proximity to the salty seas, oysters have a natural appeal to be marked down.
Businesses are finding that as the “eat cheap” mentality endures, an affordable oyster is an invitation to linger. Once in a while, a diner eats 24 dollar oysters with a glass of water. Most though, add a cocktail or maybe a full meal, too. Factor in the tip, and the outcome of that dollar deal is a net positive for the restaurant.
Petula’s in South Boston opened last May with a buck-a-shuck deal built into its Friday menu to encourage the lunch crowd, said owner Rachel Titcomb.
“There’s only so many people willing to come during the day when they’re working,” she added. “Oysters set the tone for a slow, fun meal where you sit and chat and drink.”
Carrie Nation also started selling dollar oysters Tuesday to Friday evenings a few months ago, because “it’s hard to fill an empty bar,” said Aidan McGee, the culinary director at East Coast Tavern Group, which operates the downtown cocktail bar. “It’s easier if it’s half full.”
The dollar oyster, he said, is the thing that gave office workers who left the Financial District during the COVID-19 pandemic — and are now slowly, endlessly returning — a reason to stick around after-hours. They can even watch the show, with shuckers working alongside bartenders spinning up gimlets and punch. “It’s given us a new dimension,” McGee said. “A bit more theater within the restaurant.”
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For places known for their seafood, buck-a-shuck can be an easy way to get new customers or bring in older ones, even if they do not break even on one meal.
“You chalk it up to marketing and call it a day,” said Michael Scelfo, the chef at Waypoint, a Cambridge seafood spot that offers dollar oysters during a daily happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m. “It’s a feast or famine thing, and it’s more famine than anything else for us, the business — even when people are feasting.”
The deals themselves are possible partly because the oyster has weathered the last few years better, economically, than its pricier peers. Lobster costs have shot up due to a combination of inflation, climate change, and fishing restrictions. Scallops right off the boat can fetch $14 per pound. But that is not a problem for oysters.
In 2022, 398 Massachusetts farms held permits to grow oysters, up from 384 two years prior, according to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. And the value of each piece remained steady, too. The typical price of an oyster from a cultivator in the most recent available data was 57 cents, compared to 53 cents in 2020.
That trend can be difficult for farmers, who have not always seen profits rise to meet their expenses, said Bekah Angoff, director of procurement at Boston seafood wholesaler Wulf’s Fish. But diners ultimately win out.
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“Restaurants want to hold onto cheap oysters so badly,” she said. “The farmers are at the mercy of their customers in order to get oysters out of their beds, and the money to still flow in.”
A smattering of restaurants have bowed out of the dollar-oyster business, deciding they are too expensive to source or too unwieldy to manage.
The new owners at the Harvard Square dive Charlie’s Kitchen raised its infamous daily promo from 50 cents to $2 per oyster this spring. Co-owner Derek Luangrath said he made the change because the earlier price incentivized customers to get so many oysters, the business did not have enough hands to shuck them.
“It takes away from our chefs cooking what we really need just to get oysters out there,” he added. “It just stopped making sense.”
Will Gilson, owner of Puritan Oyster Bar in Cambridge, also offers discounted oysters every day from 5 to 6 p.m. The catch? They’re not a dollar, but $1.50, or half off the usual price. It’s the only way the deal can be sustainable for the 40-seat business, which relies on a tidy menu of seafood — clam bellies, anchovy platters, and furikake fries — to stay solvent.
Gilson believes the peak of the dollar oyster craze is behind us, though he is happy for the buck-a-shuck train to roll on elsewhere. His staff is now contemplating introducing discounts or giveaways for customers who eat a certain number of discounted oysters at Puritan.
“You’ll watch a person dine by themselves and eat 72 oysters. Too much for me, but I can appreciate people who love them,” he said. “There’s a few regulars who we’ve started keeping a running tally at the register — 100, 500, even 1,000.”
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Diti Kohli can be reached at diti.kohli@globe.com. Follow her @ditikohli_.