Old Ebbitt Grill - Oyster Riot

Oyster Riot

Oyster Riot is an annual oyster eating event held at Old Ebbitt Grill each November, the weekend before Thanksgiving. Although it was originally a four-hour, all-you-can eat and drink event held on a single day, Oyster Riot was a three-hour event in 2011 which occurred Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Oyster Riot first occurred in October 1995 as a means of promoting Old Ebbitt Grill's oyster bar. The oyster bar served 15 to 20 different varieties of oyster, and matched them with seven to 10 different types of wine specially chosen to match the oysters. The four-hour-long event was all you can eat/all you can drink. Oyster Riot proved wildly popular. In 2007, the event sold every ticket in just 38 minutes.

In 2010, Old Ebbitt Grill joined the Shell Recycling Alliance, a project of the Oyster Recovery Partnership (a nonprofit helping to restore oyster populations in the Chesapeake Bay). Old Ebbitt Grill donates its used oyster shells to the alliance, which plants baby oysters (known as "spat") on the shells and deposits them in the bay. The restaurant donated about 14,000 oysters a week to the alliance in 2010. Old Ebbitt has long composted its food waste, but oyster shells were not compostable and before 2010 were thrown out as garbage. To help the Shell Recycling Alliance, Old Ebbitt Grill introduced a new element to its Oyster Riot, a Saturday afternoon event known as "Matinee Riot." Held at noon, a portion of the proceeds are donated to the Oyster Recovery Partnership.