42nd St. Oyster Bar & Seafood Grill is committed to serving and supporting local seafood

‘Time to eat.’ It’s been the sign outside the 42nd St. Oyster Bar and Seafood Grill since 1987, but the restaurant’s history spans more than eight decades.

It started as an oyster deli on 42nd Street. Then, in 1933, after Prohibition, the store began serving draft beer. The restaurant’s website says it was the first place to serve “draft beer in a frosted mug.”

Then, in 1987, it moved to its current location on the corner of Jones and West streets.

In 2019 and 2023, the restaurant won the WRAL Voters’ Choice Award for Best Local Seafood.

To this day, employees are committed to using as much local seafood as possible. Diners can try different types of oysters from North Carolina and Virginia.

Diners can watch their oysters shuck to order, or those not interested in seafood can try the restaurant’s steak or chicken.

The restaurant also participates in the North Carolina Oyster Shell Recycling Program, which puts used oyster shells back into the waters along the North Carolina coast to help baby oysters find a shell to call home. attach and grow.

On average, the restaurant serves around 3,500 oysters per week.

The restaurant’s walls help diners get a sense of the restaurant’s rich history. One photo on one wall is a receipt for two from 1956, while another is adorned with the names of North Carolina politicians who stopped by for a bite to eat.

As customer Mable Taylor described it, “the people sitting at the oyster bar could be the governor sitting next to the construction workers.”

For years, Raleigh residents have flocked to 42nd Street to celebrate special occasions.

“In 2000, when I was a senior at Cary High and I, my date and 8 friends went there for our dinner before our prom,” Burt Lawson said.

But the seafood restaurant isn’t just for special occasions: diners can come listen to live music or sit at the bar in front of the restaurant.

Another Raleigh resident, Susan Murphy, remembers going to the restaurant to listen to live music in the ’90s. She even remembers being at the restaurant watching the police chase of OJ Simpson in Los Angeles in 1994.