After a recent frustrating workday, the only way I could resuscitate my mood was with a stiff gin martini and some premium oysters. I headed to a popular seafood bar where I found an impressive selection of oysters from New England and a few from the Gulf Coast. Alas, there were none of what I craved most: West Coast oysters — rich, sweet, and almost creamy. I asked the bartender about the availability of Pacific bivalves. The bartender hesitated before answering. “We do, but we don’t list them. We’re not supposed to serve West Coast oysters in Austin.” You see, Northern California and Washington oysters are illicit off-menu options at this particular Texas restaurant.

So I did what any self-respecting oyster lover would do; I ordered a dozen buttery California Kumamotos, feeling like a speakeasy renegade during Prohibition. But my curiosity was fully piqued. Why can’t Austin restaurants legally sell West Coast oysters?

The short answer is that West Coast oysters are illegal in Texas, thanks to an obscure law passed by the Texas Legislature back in 1989. “[It’s] the only state that I’m aware of that prohibits sales of Pacific oysters to consumers,” confirms Bobbi Hudson, executive director of the Pacific Shellfish Institute in Olympia, Washington.

What’s the rationale? Essentially, it was a precaution. Pacific oysters are considered an invasive species. “They’ve been shown to establish naturally reproducing populations outside their natural range,” Hudson says. So when West Coast oysters are introduced to new locations — say, Texas — through discarded oysters — the bivalves are quickly able to mate and produce baby oysters, expanding their population to the point where they outnumber the native breeds in the area.

Pacific Coast oysters are especially-effective “ecosystem engineers,” as Hudson puts it. They change their environments through their capabilities as filter feeders, removing algae, nutrients, and other particles from surrounding waters. They also carry microbes and bacteria on their shells that are foreign to new waters and can have negative effects on existing ecosystems, thus pushing out local aquatic life. As a result, throughout the world, Pacific oysters already “dominate global shellfish aquaculture production,” she says.

When the Texas law was established in 1989, the oyster restrictions in the state applied only to the oyster breed known as Pacific oysters, which originated in the waters surrounding Japan. Then, in 2021, the state decided to further protect Gulf oysters by passing a tighter law that banned any species that isn’t native to the Gulf, aka “controlled exotic species.” Under these restrictions the broad category Crassostrea virginica — also called the Eastern oyster (because they are, yes, found in the East Coast of North America) — are permitted. The distinction between Gulf and Eastern oysters is where the bivalves grow.

So per the rules, all West Coast oysters — from Kumamoto to Olympia — are illegal to source and sell in Texas.

But rules are often bent or broken.

Hudson is aware that some establishments still serve West Coast oysters in the state. But she isn’t too worried: “I would argue that the risk isn’t high,” referring to potentially introducing invasive species into Texas.

West Coast oysters “pop up more frequently” than you’d expect, says Brendan Yancy, founder of Austin Oyster Co., though businesses generally have to get a bit creative to acquire their black market bivalves. With wholesalers unwilling to skirt the law, restaurants often turn to the farms directly, says Yancy, and of those farms, there are only a small handful willing to risk their license by defying the state of Texas.

Some businesses will downplay said liability, insisting that Texas law enforcement doesn’t prioritize enforcing oyster provenance. However, Daniel Berg, owner and executive chef of Austin restaurant Bill’s Oyster, knows that those aren’t empty threats. “We recently had a Texas game warden come into the restaurant to check our tags and make sure we weren’t serving West Coast oysters,” he says, noting that they don’t. “I was pretty shocked by that.”

Berg also doesn’t feel limited by Texas’s regulations especially with the option to import East Coast oysters. He prefers Northeast ones because they’re “smaller and more briny,” while he feels the Gulf oysters are “larger and not as clean-tasting.” (He admits Gulf oysters are better for grilling and frying.)

Bill’s Oyster works with local seafood distributor Minamoto Foods, which has strong connections with oyster farms in New England and eastern Canada. Since Texas is so far away from those prime oyster regions, it’s hard to connect personally with these farmers. “Trusting and relying on [a distributor] is important,” Berg says.

Yancy, on the other hand, has family connections in the Northeast, which means access to farms in Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. It’s inherently the ethos of his business: “The whole concept is really bringing East Coast oysters to people in Austin,” he says of Austin Oyster Co. (The company grew and harvested its own oysters from Portland, Maine for the first time this fall season.)

Yancy does believe the viability of Texas oysters. “I’m rooting for Texas farms,” he says. The state’s oyster industry is far newer than its other counterparts, which puts farms like Texas Oyster Ranch, Jeri’s Oysters, and DJ’s Oyster Co. at a disadvantage. “They’ve got a lot of uphill battles against them,” he says, which puts the state’s oyster industry behind competitors in other states. Yancy notes that the Gulf’s warmer temperatures create a higher yield than the colder Northeastern waters, but because the state’s oyster farming infrastructure isn’t yet equipped to handle the volume, Texas has some catching up to do before they can meet the oyster farming scale the West Coast, East Coast, and even other Gulf regions like Louisiana.

Can there be a way to legally have West Coast oysters in Austin without becoming a shellfish outlaw? There aren’t any above-board answers just yet, but Hudson says that science may already have a solution. “From a biological perspective, there are ways to create organisms that can’t reproduce,” she says. “With Pacific oysters, it’s already routinely done around the world to control gonad development” — a process that, according to the University of Washington, involves stopping the maturation of the oyster eggs. The resulting reproductively-inactive “triploid” oyster happens to have more tender and flavorful meat year-round in addition to being unable to realistically reproduce (Read: less of a threat to Gulf oyster populations). Until genetically modified bivalves become more widely available, West Coast oysters are only available on an if-you-know-you-know basis. So keep your eyes peeled and your conversations with oyster bartenders flowing — you might just score a secret stash.

AUSTIN, Texas  — The Texas Supreme Court, the state’s court of last resort for civil matters, will likely remain an all-Republican court for now as all three incumbents were headed for wins Wednesday morning. 

According to The Associated Press, Republican incumbent Jimmy Blacklock has defeated Democrat DaSean Jones by 58% with almost all of the votes counted, Republican incumbent John Devine is heading for victory with a sizable lead over Democrat Christine Weems—but the race has yet to be called—and Republican incumbent Jane Bland fended off challenges by Democrat Bonnie Lee Goldstein and Libertarian David Roberson winning over 56% of the vote.

The Texas Supreme Court has nine justices, three of whom ran for reelection with opposition.

Devine was the only justice with a primary challenger. In March, he survived a challenge by Brian Walker, of the Second District Court of Appeals, by 1 percentage point.

Devine has been controversial. He has called church-state separation a “myth,” was the Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022, once called his GOP colleagues “brainwashed” in leaked audio and has claimed he was arrested 37 times at abortion protests in the 1980s.

Weems is a judge on the 281^st Civil District Court in Harris County. Her biography says she’s the daughter of immigrants who fled Vietnam when Saigon fell in 1975. Previously a trial attorney in personal injury civil law and civil trial law, in an election ad available on YouTube, Weems says she is a judge “who upholds the law” and lives “by a Texas code of ethics.”

Spectrum News 1 partner the Texas Tribune noted that Democrats targeted the court this election in hopes that backlash over rulings on abortion and LGBTQ+ issues would be enough to break up the Republican hold on the court.

Blacklock was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2018. He previously served as Abbott’s general counsel and in the Attorney General’s Office under then-AG Abbott.

Jones is a district court judge in Harris County. He’s been a judge on the 180^th District Court since 2019 and is a veteran. According to his biography, he’s the first combat veteran and minority to preside over the 180^th District Court.

Bland has served on the Texas Supreme Court since 2019. Prior to that, she was a justice on the First Court of Appeals for 15 years and served six years as a state district judge.

Dallas Judge Goldstein was elected to the 5^th District Court of Appeals in 2020. She was previously the presiding judge on of the 44^th Judicial District Court in Dallas County.

Libertarian Roberson has experience working as an attorney and as vice president of operations at Prime Tax Group. He identified the most pressing issues as abortion restrictions and I-35 corridor construction through Austin.

Millions of Texas voters have cast their ballots and at 7 p.m. we will get a look at our first results.

Texans decided on dozens of races, from the presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris to a high-dollar senate showdown between Ted Cruz and Colin Allred and several others that impact their communities.

You can watch the live results as they come in below.

We also have a larger look at the race and what it all means at fox7austin.com/election.

Presidential Election Results – Texas

U.S. Senate Election Results – Texas

U.S. House Election Results – Texas

Texas House Election Results

Texas Senate Election Results

Texas Supreme Court

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Texas State Board of Education

Texas Railroad Commissioner

Travis County Results

Williamson County Results

Hays County Results