There may be no other Olympia restaurant so perfectly placed as the Oyster House. Perched between Percival Landing and the Heritage Park Fountain on Fourth Avenue downtown, the restaurant has been around in one incarnation or another since 1924.
Touted as the oldest seafood restaurant in Washington State, the Oyster House was originally an oyster shucking plant, the Olympia Oyster Company, which dates back to the late 1800s.
The Oyster House’s motto says it all: “The oysters you eat today slept last night at Oyster Bay.”
Without a doubt, the oysters are the star at the Oyster House, but the rest of the menu is equally delicious and varied, offering other seafood selections, steaks, pasta dishes, burgers and sandwiches, appetizers, desserts, and more.
Rich Barrett owns the Oyster House along with his father, Tom. Rich and his late mother, Linda, were the ones originally interested in buying, revamping, and running the place.
In the mid-1990s, what had most recently been called the Olympia Oyster House sat empty for about a year, and was for sale.
Rich and his parents looked into it. “And that was that,” he says. “We went after it and we’ve had it now for over 15 years.”
The Barretts weren’t new to the food industry when they vowed to take on renovations to return the restaurant to its previous glory. Rich had done some culinary training up in Seattle and his parents had owned Dairy Queen eateries, including the one that used to be on Capitol Way. “I grew up in that business,” Rich says.
The leap from fast food to full-service dining was an eye opener. “We were very busy – a lot busier than we expected – right from the get go,” Rich remembers. “We had a lot of issues to iron out.”
But soon enough the restaurant was up and running smoothly, after opening in July of 1996. It’s been serving patrons in its large, window-lined dining room ever since – and even bigger crowds during warmer-weather months, when it opens its waterfront deck to diners, giving them gorgeous views of Budd Inlet alongside their delectable meals.
“Our food kind of speaks for itself,” says Rich. The menu is extensive, covering the spectrum of scrumptious fare. “You can get everything from a cheeseburger that we really think is done well to the seafood we offer: crab legs, pan-fried oysters, chowder, prawn, and more.”
Rich says the restaurant’s biggest seller these days is the halibut and chips. “We use fresh halibut that we cut every day.”
The Oyster House also offers a kid’s menu for children 12 and under and a senior discount from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. every day.
Happy hour from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. every day means $1.50 off all drinks except bottled beer.
Daily specials, Monday through Friday, include prime rib, broiled salmon, Pacific pan-fried oysters, and more.
Business booms in the summertime at the Oyster House. No surprise, given its dazzling waterfront locale.
“You can’t beat being on the water,” says Rich. “We offer a lot of seats on the deck and when the weather finally changes, everyone’s really in a hurry to get outside.”
The Oyster House brings in live music every Saturday night in the summertime, as well. Weather permitting – this is the Pacific Northwest after all, so rain does sometimes fall even in the warmer months – bands play on the deck. If necessary, they move into the bar.
Mouth-watering meals are served every day of the year at the Oyster House, except Christmas. It offers a Thanksgiving-style buffet on Thanksgiving Day that always sees big crowds, often with large tables of 20 family members celebrating together.
Rich, Tom, and their team also offer buffets on Easter, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. “Mother’s Day weekend is our busiest three-day weekend of the entire year,” Rich says, “all the way from Friday through Sunday.” That’s the same weekend of the annual Wooden Boat Fair, which drives large crowds to Percival Landing and, naturally, through the Oyster House’s doors.
New patrons young and old discover the Oyster House all the time, often through the popular annual downtown fairs and events, but countless customers have been popping in on a regular basis for decades.
“Many regulars have been coming to the Oyster House since they were in high school, in the 1940s and 1950s,” says Rich.
He says they also see a lot of older customers who come in and remember visiting the restaurant before the interstate was constructed.
“Back before I-5 was here, people came right through Olympia, down Capitol Way and towards 4th to get going north,” Rich says. “There was quite a bit of traffic coming through Olympia before I-5 came.”
The Oyster House’s loyal customer base continues to come in, enjoying seafood, sandwiches, pasta, desserts, and more. And for those folks who might pop in for the first time, herald drawn in by the astounding waterview? Just ask one of those longtime regulars: it’s the food that keeps them coming back.
The Oyster House
320 West 4th Avenue
Olympia, WA 98501
info@theoysterhouseatolympia.com
360.735.7000
877.471.3858
Winter hours:
11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday
11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Summer hours:
11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday
11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday
