The honor celebrates \u201cindependently owned restaurants with timeless appeal,\u201d according to the James Beard organization. Recipients will be honored at Chicago\u2019s Lyric Opera House this June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sam Mink, the owner of Oyster House, is a third generation restaurateur. He comes from a line of men who didn\u2019t necessarily set out to serve delicious oysters \u2014 and yet serving delicious oysters became their destiny<\/a>. Mink\u2019s grandfather, also named Sam Mink, was an attorney and bought Kelly\u2019s on Mole Street<\/a>, a turn-of-the-century seafood spot in 1947.<\/p>\n \u201cHe made a lot of connections in City Hall, politicians, lawyers, and it became this big hangout for lawyers, judges and politicians,\u201d Mink said. \u201cOver 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 \u2014 the same oyster plates that adorn the walls at my grandfather\u2019s restaurant so many years ago \u2014 are still on our walls today at Oyster House.\u201d<\/p>\n Each generation of Mink men has done their own thing. Mink\u2019s father, David, sold Kelly\u2019s and opened the Sansom Street Oyster House \u2014 now just called Oyster House \u2014 in 1976. The space was old-school, filled with wooden tables, a worn-in feel and classic menu.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u2019s seafood scene \u2014 bringing oysters \u2014 once a city staple in the 1800s<\/a> \u2014 back to the mainstream.<\/p>\n Today, it\u2019s easy to find oysters on local happy hour menus. In the last two years, two of Philly\u2019s other James Beard restaurateurs, Phila Lorn and Michael Solomonov, followed suit and opened their\u00a0own high-end oyster spots \u2014 Sao<\/a> and Jaffa Bar<\/a> respectively.<\/p>\n We chatted with Mink on the heels of his James Beard news. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Congrats on the James Beard win! How are you feeling?<\/p>\n We\u2019re so honored, thrilled, excited. We\u2019re feeling all the feelings of receiving this award. It\u2019s huge! We feel like it\u2019s well deserved. We worked really hard, and we\u2019re turning 50 this year, so it could not have come at a better time.<\/p>\n Where were you when you first heard the news? Tell me about that moment.<\/p>\n It came through an email from the James Beard organization. It\u2019s 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 \u2014 all the text messages and phone calls and social media DMs. It just was a really, really fun day.\u00a0<\/p>\n You\u2019re a third generation restaurateur. Oyster House is part of your family business, even though it\u2019s shifted and changed throughout the years. This award celebrates restaurants with \u201ctimeless appeal.\u201d I\u2019d love to hear what that means to you. Why do you think Oyster House is timeless?<\/p>\n 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\u2019re 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n You guys have a reputation for bringing good seafood to Philly and showing that just because we\u2019re not New England, fresh seafood can be served in this city. Since you revamped, other restaurants have followed suit. I\u2019d love to hear more about that legacy of seafood in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> is one of the ones that most people know of, and they\u2019ve done an amazing job. We were one of their first customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u2019re proud to support local oyster farmers and sell their product at Oyster House. We still serve more oysters here than anywhere else in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n 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\u2019re always ahead of the curve.<\/p>\n What does it mean to have the James Beard name linked with yours?<\/p>\n I\u2019m just so honored. This is the biggest name nationally in the restaurant community, right? It\u2019s James Beard. That\u2019s like the Oscars of the restaurant industry. So to be able to be a part of this organization and have them honor us, we\u2019re so humble. It means so much. You usually hear about the new restaurants and the hottest chefs, and we\u2019re not that restaurant, right? We were not the new kid on the block. We often don\u2019t 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\u2019ve done, what we\u2019ve accomplished over the years, and they understand it, and they respect it, and they\u2019re celebrating us, and that\u2019s huge.<\/p>\n James Beard is a queer culinary icon, and was closeted for, I think, most of his life. You\u2019ve been vocal about your support for LGBTQ advocacy in the city, and also your place as a queer restauranteur. It\u2019s very cool to see restaurateurs like yourself winning these awards and continuing that legacy.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/oysterhouse-credit-danyahenninger-lobsterroll.jpg\")
Lobster roll at Oyster House. (Photo by Danya Henninger)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/oysterhouse-chickenfriedoysters.jpg\")
Chicken salad and fried oysters at Oyster House Credit: Craig LaBan\/Instagram<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/oysterhouse-shuckfest-02.jpg\")
Freshly shucked oysters from Oyster House. (Courtesy Oyster House)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/oysterhouse-credit-danyahenninger-oysters.jpg\")
Oyster House does it right. (Photo by Danya Henninger)<\/p>\n