Austin, TX
Why Are West Coast Oysters So Hard to Find in Austin?
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.
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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.)
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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.
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The road to Omaha starts now for the No. 6 national seed Texas Longhorns. For the 39th time in the program’s storied history, the Longhorns will host the NCAA Regional with the opportunity to host a super regional if they can get out of a talent grouping.
This year’s Austin Regional is paired up with the Eugene Regional, hosted by the No. 11 Oregon Ducks. Last season, Texas had its best season since 2010 in its first year in the Southeastern Conference, but everything came crashing down when the Longhorns lost twice to the UTSA Roadrunners.
While last year’s result served as a lesson for the returners, most of the 2026 squad was either at other places or in high school, marking a new beginning for many.
“It’s always the most fun time of year, and certainly when you need the opportunity to play at home,” head coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “Welcome to Holy Cross, Tarleton State, and UCSB. Looking forward to great three or four days of baseball.”
Here are some keys for the Longhorns to make it out of the regional round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2023.
1 – Aiden Robbins Must Produce
At one point in the season, Texas junior outfielder Aiden Robbins was one of the most dangerous hitters in the nation. For a hitter who has never batted under .300 dating back to high school, he maintained his production in a much more competitive SEC slate.
But in the final couple of games in the season, Robbins has not been the same imposing bat that won him the SEC Newcomer of the Year honors. Dating back to the Tennessee series, Robbins has gone 4-for-21 at the plate while striking out nine times.
The Longhorns’ top-of-the-order bat is also riding a three-game hitless streak heading into postseason play.
Robbins is battling back from a stomach bug that took him out early in the second game of the Missouri series and the entirety of the regular season finale.
If Texas wants to get out of its regional, its best bat for the entirety of the season must get back to his original form. A possible tuneup game against Holy Cross may be the switch to get him back. If not, he’ll have to move down in the order to allow catcher Carson Tinney and SEC Freshman of the Year, Anthony Pack Jr., to be the brunt of the offensive load.
2 – Texas Can’t Get Into The Loser’s Bracket
Playing two games in one day is almost a death sentence for any team with hopes of making it out of the regional.
Texas learned this the hard way: after beating Houston Christian in the first game of last season’s regional, the Longhorns fell in the second game to UTSA, forcing them to battle in the losers’ bracket with Kansas State.
Despite beating Kansas State on Sunday, Texas only had around an hour’s break before the regional final game, and a rematch with UTSA, ultimately in the regional defining loss.
“The biggest thing we learned is that everything up to this point just doesn’t, doesn’t matter. It’s all out the window – it’s a new season,” Luke Harrison said. “We’ve got to find a way to get better as a team and play better than we have all year.”
Texas is rolling out Harrison for game one against Holy Cross, saving Dylan Volantis for a big-time game on Saturday for either a rematch with Tarleton State or against a talented UC-Santa Brarba team.
While Texas does have the arms to win out of the losers’ bracket, it’s a task that will cause more pressure on the entire team.
3 – Starters and Bullpen Must Play Their A-Game
It has been well documented that the bullpen has seen its fair share of woes this season, and one of the keys to beating Texas is to retire the starter early to force them to tap into the bullpen early.
The starting trio of Harrison, Dylan Volantis and Ruger Riojas must eat up as many innings as possible, something they’ve done for the most part the entire season. Then it’s up to the bullpen to not allow the opposition to gain momentum down the stretch.
For Schlossnagle, there will not be much experimentation in the regional, and the arms that have proven their worth will get the nod.
“The guys who have pitched the best all season, they’re going to pitch the most,” Schlossnagle said. “If that means a reliever who maybe hasn’t pitched before the seventh inning has to come in a different part of the game, that’s what’s going to happen.”
While the SEC Tournament was disappointing on the hitting front, Texas was able to get looks from multiple pitchers in different parts of the game. Freshman pitchers, Sam Cozart and Brett Crossland, will be primary options while Thomas Burns and Haiden Leffew cannot struggle in the late-inning situations
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The Texas Education Agency rejected a partnership proposed by the Austin Independent School District to buy the district more time to avoid a state takeover. In a letter sent to Superintendent Matias Segura on Thursday, the TEA denied the district’s request to hand over three middle schools to an outside provider to run them under what is known as an 1882 agreement.
In March, the district proposed partnering with the Texas Council for International Studies to run Burnet, Dobie and Webb middle schools as charter schools. The three campuses have received four consecutive unacceptable grades from the state’s accountability system. A fifth failing grade could trigger a total takeover of the entire district, with the TEA replacing the school board with a board of managers.
The letter sent to Segura explains the operating partner must comply with three criteria: have at least three years of experience before taking over a campus; have managed multiple campuses for multiple years; and have significantly improved the academic performance of campuses. The TEA says TCIS only meets two of those three criteria, and it “does not qualify as an operating partner with the capacity necessary to successfully turn around campuses.”
The TEA argues TCIS has failed to prove a track record of improving campuses’ academic performance. TCIS has managed 16 campuses in San Antonio ISD, Longview ISD and Edgewood ISD. However, only five out of those campuses had a D or an F rating before being operated by the non-profit.
AISD Superintendent Segura said in a written statement to families on Thursday evening that the district remains confident that TCIS is capable of lifting student outcomes.
“While this response is disappointing, I want to assure you that this is not the end of the process,” Segura said in the statement. “TEA has explicitly invited Austin ISD to submit additional information to support and reinforce our application, and we fully intend to do so.”
If approved, the two-year 1882 agreement would allow the district to pause the accountability clock for these three schools. AISD and TCIS can still continue with the partnership, but if they choose to, the TEA said, Burnet, Dobie and Webb would not get the benefits of the 1882 agreement, including state funding and reprieve from state ratings.
When the partnership was approved during a board meeting in March, Segura said district officials were confident the TEA would approve it because they had talked with TCIS about expectations and had visited their schools. Segura said the district had also received feedback from the TEA about the plan and had adjusted the partnership accordingly.
“When we look at the timeline, we could see on May or June before we get a final approval. But we are not shy about asking questions and making adjustments where appropriate,” he said. “But if the agency does not accept after all of that we would appreciate the opportunity to make the adjustment, which is what we have seen them do.”
KUT reached out to the TEA to ask about when a final decision must be made, and has not heard back.
Ratings for the 2025-2026 school year have not yet been released. But in his message to parents Thursday, Segura said the district is seeing “promising accelerated student growth” across the district. He said district officials will continue advocating for a partnership.
Austin Police Department officers arrested three suspects, all under the age of 18, in connection with a series of shootings, stolen vehicles, and other violent crimes that unfolded across Austin, Texas, and nearby Manor on May 16 and May 17. According to court records obtained by CBS Austin, the suspects allegedly stole a 9mm Glock pistol from Central Texas Gun Works, a high-profile gun store in Austin, hours before carrying out the 12 shootings, which injured four people, struck homes and vehicles, and damaged fire department property.
The store’s owner, Michael Cargill — a well-known gun rights advocate and the plaintiff behind the Supreme Court’s landmark Garland v. Cargill decision that struck down the federal bump stock ban — denies that the pistol stolen from his store was used in the shootings, though police say they recovered 9mm casings from the crime scenes.
Regardless, the theft draws attention to Central Texas Gun Works’ security measures, as Cargill himself admitted that one of the shooting spree suspects had attempted to rob the store multiple times in recent months, as discussed below.
Thefts from Central Texas Gun Works
In public statements following the shootings, Cargill repeatedly blamed local prosecutors for releasing the juvenile suspects after an earlier gun theft from his store in January. But his own comments also reveal security failures that allowed the same suspects who had tried to steal firearms at Central Texas Gun Works multiple times before escaping with one.
According to Cargill, one of the shooting spree suspects had attempted to steal guns from Central Texas Gun Works on four previous occasions, including most recently in January, when he asked to examine a gun and then ran out of the store with it. Cargill said he personally chased the suspect onto a city bus, stopped the bus from leaving, and had the driver lock the doors until police arrived. After cornering the suspect on the crowded bus, Cargill alleges that he told the teen, “If you pull out this gun on the back of this bus, you better think twice about what you’re doing. Because if you do, we will both die on this bus before I let you off this bus.”
Cargill lamented that Texas state law only allows a person to use deadly force against a person stealing a firearm at night, but not during the day.
Despite prior theft attempts, Cargill also acknowledged to reporters that customers are not required to show identification before handling firearms inside the store. Cargill stated that he and his employees only check a person’s ID “once they’re purchasing a firearm.” When answering questions from reporters, Cargill said that if someone asked to look at a gun, they wouldn’t have to show ID — at least “not initially.” In other words, according to Cargill, individuals could walk into the store, request a firearm, and physically handle it before any identity verification occurred.
Even after the same suspect had allegedly targeted the store multiple times, no additional safeguards appeared to be in place to prevent someone from simply grabbing a firearm and fleeing the building. During another interview, Cargill said the suspect walked in “at the perfect time” when Cargill was teaching a class and another employee was “doing something” and “ask[ed] to look at a firearm,” then “boom, dart[ed] out the front door.”
minimal security requirements
The incident highlights broader concerns about gun dealer security practices and the lack of meaningful federal requirements governing how guns are displayed, handled, or secured inside retail gun stores, despite thousands of firearms being lost or stolen from dealers every year. Unlike pharmacies, jewelry stores, dispensaries, or even some electronics retailers — businesses that often employ controlled-entry systems, tethered merchandise, locked displays, or mandatory identification procedures for potential customers — gun dealers face relatively limited federal security requirements despite selling lethal weapons.
For its part, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade association, lobbies against store security requirements, arguing that they are too “costly” and “burdensome” for dealers.
Cargill’s own statements suggest his store relied heavily on reactive measures, such as surveillance cameras and armed pursuit after thefts occurred, rather than preventative barriers designed to stop unauthorized individuals from physically obtaining firearms in the first place. Instead of addressing the security failures that made his gun store an easy target, Cargill argued that the Texas legislature needs to loosen gun laws to allow gun store owners “to use deadly force for theft of a firearm during the daytime. We would have no problem putting them on the escalator and sending them to Jesus.”
Following media reports linking the stolen firearm to Central Texas Gun Works, Cargill also threatened legal action against journalists and local news outlets that reported the gun allegedly used in the shootings came from his store. In a post on X, Cargill wrote that his attorneys were “preparing paperwork to go after every single person and media outlet” that reported the connection, calling the coverage “#Defamation.” The post included an image styled after a movie poster with Cargill standing near his store and the words “OWNER. LEADER. PROTECTOR.”
Cargill’s comments reflect a broader pattern within the firearms industry: When guns are stolen and later used in crimes, responsibility is often placed on prosecutors, courts, or the individuals who pulled the trigger, but far less attention is paid to the security failures that allowed firearms to leave retail stores in the first place.
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