The foodie prestige just keeps coming to Philly!
Oyster House, Philly’s beloved seafood spot — known for its fresh lobster rolls, yummy cocktails and oysters that make you feel as if you’re on Maine’s coast — has just won the James Beard America’s Classics award.
The honor celebrates “independent owned restaurants with timeless appeal,” according to the James Beard organization. Recipients will be honored at Chicago’s Lyric Opera House this June.
Sam Mink, the owner of Oyster House, is a third generation restaurateur. He comes from a line of men who didn’t necessarily set out to serve delicious oysters — and yet serving delicious oysters became their destiny. Mink’s grandfather, also named Sam Mink, was an attorney and bought Kelly’s on Mole Street, a turn-of-the-century seafood spot in 1947.
“He made a lot of connections in City Hall, politicians, lawyers, and it became this big hangout for lawyers, judges and politicians,” Mink said. “Over the years, my grandfather collected oyster plates and seafood art, which he decorated the walls with. And that collection has been transferred down to my father and then to me. And those oyster plates — the same oyster plates that adorn the walls at my grandfather’s restaurant so many years ago — are still on our walls today at Oyster House.”
Each generation of Mink men has done their own thing. Mink’s father, David, sold Kelly’s and opened the Sansom Street Oyster House — now just called Oyster House — in 1976. The space was old-school, filled with wooden tables, a worn-in feel and classic menu.
Mink (you know, the younger Mink) is the one who transformed the restaurant into what it is today, gutting the space from top to bottom in 2009 and revamping its menu to have a more inventive feel. In turn, he has become a pioneer in Philly’s seafood scene — bringing oysters — once a city staple in the 1800s — back to the mainstream.
Today, it’s easy to find oysters on local happy hour menus. In the last two years, two of Philly’s other James Beard restaurateurs, Phila Lorn and Michael Solomonov, followed suit and opened their own high-end oyster spots — Sao and Jaffa Bar respectively.
We chatted with Mink on the heels of his James Beard news. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Congrats on the James Beard win! How are you feeling?
We’re so honored, thrilled, excited. We’re feeling all the feelings of receiving this award. It’s huge! We feel like it’s well deserved. We worked really hard, and we’re turning 50 this year, so it could not have come at a better time.
Where were you when you first heard the news? Tell me about that moment.
It came through an email from the James Beard organization. It’s like, what!? You kind of have to read it twice. I kept it in because it was a confidential email, and when they released it yesterday, my phone just was blowing up — all the text messages and phone calls and social media DMs. It just was a really, really fun day.
You’re a third generation restaurateur. Oyster House is part of your family business, even though it’s shifted and changed throughout the years. This award celebrates restaurants with “timeless appeal.” I’d love to hear what that means to you. Why do you think Oyster House is timeless?
Oyster House is so classic in so many ways, but the one thing that we continue to do is always look forward. We always want to be honoring the past, representing the past well, but also moving forward with our style of service, with the food that we create, with our beverage program. We are able to go between old school and new school seamlessly at this restaurant. We are a restaurant for so many different Philadelphians. We’re not just an elitist restaurant or an everyday diner. We can be a restaurant where people come out and splurge and have this wonderful special occasion meal, or we can be that place where a construction worker comes in with his hard hat and enjoys a bowl of chowder and a beer after a shift.
You guys have a reputation for bringing good seafood to Philly and showing that just because we’re not New England, fresh seafood can be served in this city. Since you revamped, other restaurants have followed suit. I’d love to hear more about that legacy of seafood in Philadelphia.
Oyster bars used to be so common on all the corners of Philadelphia. Every neighborhood had an oyster bar 150 years ago and they went by the wayside. When I took over Oyster House in 2008 there were very few places left to enjoy oysters in Philadelphia. We really leaned into the local oyster market that was just starting to take off in New Jersey, and we worked with a lot of local oyster farmers. Obviously, Sweet Amalia is one of the ones that most people know of, and they’ve done an amazing job. We were one of their first customers.
There have blossomed dozens and dozens of local oyster farms between the Cape May Peninsula area all the way up the jersey shoreline to Barnegat Bay and beyond. We’re proud to support local oyster farmers and sell their product at Oyster House. We still serve more oysters here than anywhere else in Philadelphia.
Obviously, oysters are hot right now. We started seeing so many restaurants open up with oyster bars in the last five years. The competition has gotten so much steeper, and we want to make sure that we’re always ahead of the curve.
What does it mean to have the James Beard name linked with yours?
I’m just so honored. This is the biggest name nationally in the restaurant community, right? It’s James Beard. That’s like the Oscars of the restaurant industry. So to be able to be a part of this organization and have them honor us, we’re so humble. It means so much. You usually hear about the new restaurants and the hottest chefs, and we’re not that restaurant, right? We were not the new kid on the block. We often don’t get a lot of that new praise, but it is such an honor to be in that in that organization, where they they are honoring us for what we’ve done, what we’ve accomplished over the years, and they understand it, and they respect it, and they’re celebrating us, and that’s huge.
James Beard is a queer culinary icon, and was closeted for, I think, most of his life. You’ve been vocal about your support for LGBTQ advocacy in the city, and also your place as a queer restauranteur. It’s very cool to see restaurateurs like yourself winning these awards and continuing that legacy.
As far as being a gay restaurant owner in Philadelphia, it’s part of my identity — proud of it. We work with the Attic Youth Center. I was on the board there for many years, and we still provide a hot meal to the Attic Youth Center every week. The world is a really hard place for LGBTQ youth, and especially now in the current political climate, so to be able to provide a safe place and a hot meal for these youth is huge for us.
People ask me, what’s it like being a gay business owner in Philadelphia? Honestly, it’s a beautiful thing that I don’t think about my sexuality on a day to day basis when I’m doing my work. That’s not what drives me. That’s not why I’m here. I do what I do because I love what I do and I’m proud of what we do, and I took over my family business, and being gay is part of my identity, like being Jewish, or being from Philadelphia, being a dad, you know? It’s not the driving force of what I do.
Are you headed to the Beard Awards at Chicago’s Lyric Opera House in June?
Oh, man. So coincidentally, I had already planned a trip to Greece with my family for that week of the James Beard Awards. I will not be going, but many of my team will be going to represent us and they are thrilled and excited. This award is not just for me and the Mink family, it is for all of us that worked tirelessly at this restaurant over the years, both current and also past employees that have made their mark and worked hard here.
How did your family react to the news?
My dad leaned in, gave me a big hug and kiss and just told me how proud he was of me. And vice versa — how proud I am of him, because this is his baby. You know, he started this restaurant 50 years ago in the spring of 1976, so the whole family is really excited and feels really proud of this moment.
How are you feeling about our conversation? Is there anything coming up we haven’t discussed you want me to know?
You know, we’re celebrating 50 years this spring, so stay tuned. We’re going to be doing a lot of fun things to celebrate.
