Felix’s Oyster Bar keeps ’em coming despite shortage

NEW ORLEANS — On a busy Saturday night in the heart of the French Quarter, tourists and partiers parade along Bourbon Street and spill onto side streets carrying fishbowl-sized cocktails. Blues, jazz and pop pour out from clubs, and street musicians entice passersby to dance along. In the riot of color, lights and sounds, a soul could be forgiven for forgetting the BP debacle in the Gulf of Mexico and its impact on the seafood purveyors found on every block.

Felix's Oyster Bar, 739 Iberville St., has been serving oysters all summer despite the oil spill that began April 20 and continued gushing crude for almost three months.

Michael Jackson — it's the name on his driver's license — has been shucking oysters at Felix's for about a year and a half. "We never ran out of oysters," he said.

Neighboring restaurants along Iberville near Bourbon Street, such as Acme and Bourbon House, have been helping each other in the search for oysters from new areas along the coast. "Things will get better," Jackson said while serving up raw oysters at the bar to a couple of regular customers.

One Texas patron said any time he drives through town, Felix's Bar is a must-stop for a tray of the delicacy raw on the half shell. Michael and Stacey Kinne are RVers with a permanent home in San Antonio and a love of oysters.

They drive to New Orleans for the oysters, but more specifically, they come to Felix's for the service and sentimental reasons.

Michael Kinne explained that his wife had her first oyster in this bar. "It's the only authentic place. This is authentic," he said while downing his oysters with crackers and cocktail sauce.

Across from the couple, is another shucker, Skyya Snow, who has been shucking at the raw bar since 1978, and he's ready to serve the next round of customers.

Felix's Restaurant and Oyster Bar, like many other family-owned restaurants in the French Quarter, has been around since the early 1900s.