In 2016 Peter Stein traded “desks for docks,” saying goodbye to a corporate job, and forming Peeko Oysters — an oyster farm located on Little Peconic Bay. He converted a New Suffolk building, that was previously an outboard motor repair and bait and tackle shop, into a facility for processing oysters.
“A bad day on the water is better than a good day at the office,” said Stein during a tour of the Peeko Oysters facility.
Stein grew up in Westchester, and his parents purchased a beach house in East Marion in 1972. “My wife jokes, and she’s probably correct, that I learned to fish before I could walk,” said Stein. “I love being on the water. I love being in this area. I love being on the North Fork.”
Stein supplies his oysters to some of the finest restaurants in New York: Le Bilboquet, Gramercy Tavern, La Bernardin, and The Halyard to name a few. When the pandemic hit, like so many, he had to shift his business model overnight.
When Covid-19 hit, “ninety-nine plus percent of our oysters were going to market through restaurants,” said Stein. “March 12 of last year, I remember it very, very well. Every restaurant contacted me, like ‘Do not deliver here — our doors are shutting.’ I was having a heart attack.”
But pivot he did. Leaning on friends and family members to make introductions and share on social media channels, he started doing door-to-door deliveries in his truck.
He partnered Good Food in Mattituck and drove around with coolers making deliveries. He even took truckloads into the city, delivering two-dozen oysters at a time. “I was working 12 to 18 hour days, seven days a week consistently,” he recalled.
“It got us through.” Overall he describes the experience as “grueling and awful and also great experience at the same time.”
This summer, as Covid regulations lift, as restaurants being to open at normal capacity, he will merge the new business model with the old, adding to his thriving business as a restaurant purveyor. Peeko Oysters plans to give tours of its facility, offer sunset cruises, shucking lessons and urges visitors to stop by — by land or by sea — to shuck oysters.
In April, the team at Peeko were sending between 10,000 to 15,000 oysters to market each week. Come Memorial Day they expect that number to grow to 20,000 to 25,000 oysters each week, conservatively.
He wants visitors to be able to say, “Hey, I’m going to go boat across the bay, tie up at this dock and just eat some oysters.”
His plan is to have guests enjoy oysters on the facility’s patio, which overlooks Robins Island and North Sea. “You’re welcome to shuck some oysters and enjoy the views, grab a dozen and come back and grab a dozen more.”
The process of oyster farming is fascinating to any aquaculture enthusiast or admirer.
On a barge that sits at Peeko’s dock is a dip tank. “There’s a sponge that affects oysters called a boring sponge . . . it affects where the hinge of the oyster kind of just crumbles as you start to shuck it,” Stein explained. “One of the ways that we can combat that sponge is by dipping the oysters into a brine solution.” The high salinity water will kill the sponge, but not the oyster.
Stein said that his aim when selling to restaurants is, if “you’re buying a bag of 100 oysters, you’re going to be able to put a hundred oysters on plates.”
Oyster cages fill the docks and the barge. And Peeko has about a hundred cages in the water right now.
“People like the analogy to an oyster hotel or an oyster condominium,” he described of the cages where the oysters grow in the water. The trays aren’t stacked to the brim, leaving room for the oysters to breathe and grow. “You have to make sure they have enough room to breathe and you can’t stock them too heavily.”
As the oysters grow they upgrade to larger cages. All while filtering the water around them.
Peeko offers sunset cruises on a 33-foot sport fishing boat. The evening includes a 15 minute tour of the facility followed by the cruise where guests learn more about oyster farming.
“It’s like bottomless oysters and beer and wine and cheese and veggies all locally sourced,” said Stein. Tours, which last a little over two hours, happen on Tuesday and Wednesdays. So far it’s all been word of mouth.
To learn more about Peeko Oysters, visit www.peekooysters.com.
