Marquis Riley shucked his 100,000th oyster at Seaworthy in downtown New Orleans, hitting the milestone eight months ahead of the two-year timeline he originally set for himself. The oyster shucker had worked toward the goal for 16 months, tracking every single shuck on a chalkboard behind the restaurant's raw bar before a coworker counted down his final oyster of the stretch.
Riley marked the moment with four simple words: “This is the moment, baby,” he said, according to NOLA.com. Thomas Garatie, who counted down Riley's final oyster, had just returned from a two-week vacation in time to witness it, calling the timing almost kismet. Garatie noted that Riley's progress toward the goal came in uneven chunks — some days brought 100 oysters, others 80, and some a couple hundred, per the same account.
A Grandfather's Inspiration Behind the Count
Riley's push toward a far bigger number — one million shucked oysters — traces back to his grandfather, a personal ambition first detailed during National Oyster Day coverage last year by WGNO. He keeps a personal journal at home where he glues in the shell of every thousandth oyster, writing down the date each one was shucked. For Riley, who cared for his grandmother through her dementia and works the raw bar both as a shucker and a conversationalist for guests, the counting itself became something steadying. “You can show up for yourself. You just got to decide to do something. See something tangible,” he told NOLA.com, describing how the ritual gave him a controllable activity and complete focus during a difficult stretch of his life. Reaching the goal, he said, meant becoming who he was meant to be.
Where the Shells Actually Go
Every shell Riley shucks that doesn't end up glued into his personal book gets returned to the coastline, a byproduct of Seaworthy's partnership with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, according to NOLA.com. The restaurant, opened in 2016 by New Orleans natives Alex and Miles Pincus inside a historic 1832 Creole townhouse at 630 Carondelet Street next to the Ace Hotel, has leaned into that partnership since 2018. Seaworthy recycled 22,925 pounds of oyster shells in 2025 alone, according to the restaurant's own account on Facebook, with shells placed into dedicated collection bins rather than tossed in a landfill.
That single raw bar's contribution feeds into a much larger regional effort. Over the past decade, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana's Oyster Shell Recycling Program has collected more than 17 million pounds of discarded shells, protecting more than 10,000 feet of shoreline, per Louisiana Cookin' Magazine. Those living shorelines help slow wave erosion and protect coastal wetlands. The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana's New Orleans route served 32 restaurants and three drop-off sites, according to the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana.
State Incentives and a Centuries-Old Trade
Louisiana has also built a fiscal incentive into the equation. Under Act 404, passed in 2023, the state established an income tax credit for restaurants that donate discarded oyster shells to certified coastal recycling programs for tax years 2024 through 2028, the refundable credit designed to offset operational and waste-handling costs, according to the Louisiana Department of Revenue. The Gulf of Mexico contributes over 40 percent of the total domestic dockside monetary value of oysters harvested nationwide, with Louisiana standing as the second-largest seafood producer in the country, per WGNO.
Oysters have anchored New Orleans dining since long before Riley started counting. Archaeological digs around the French Quarter have turned up giant oyster shells in 18th-century trash pits, evidence that bivalves have been a culinary staple in the city since colonial times, WGNO reports. The trade's modern backbone includes the French Quarter's P&J Oyster Company, which marked its 150th anniversary this year as the oldest continuously operated oyster dealer in the United States, according to French Quarterly Magazine, having historically supplied the bivalves behind classic Creole dishes like Oysters Rockefeller.
Next Stop: One Million Oysters, Coast to Coast
Riley isn't slowing down now that he's cleared the six-figure mark. He's set his sights on one million shucked oysters, and his plans for getting there extend well past the raw bar: he intends to renovate his van and travel coast to coast, learning about different oyster varieties along the way, according to NOLA.com. “I'm still keeping count. Moving forward,” he said.
For Riley, though, the milestone remains personal — a chalkboard tally, a glued-shell journal, and a grandfather's inspiration carried one oyster at a time.
