One of the many things that makes our beautiful and bountiful city so unique is the availability of fresh, local, and sustainable seafood. The Save Oyster Shell (S.O.S.) program began in 2008 and has blossomed into a flourishing reuse program and partnership with the City of Virginia Beach .
Community members have the opportunity to recycle and donate oyster shell from meals and parties. We will pick them up and add them to our collection to be used for future reef projects. If you or a friend is hosting an oyster roast, we have 4 drop off locations across Virginia Beach where you can bring your clean or unclean shell. OR let us come to you: we will provide you with collection baskets for used shells before the event and will come and pick them up afterwards. Contact us at office@lrnow.org or call (757) 962-5398 to schedule a pick-up. Drop sites include:
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LRNow Holland Road Office 3712 Holland Rd, Virginia Beach, back parking lot
Brock Environmental Center 3663 Marlin Bay Dr, Virginia Beach
Virginia Aquarium 717 Virginia Beach Blvd, Virginia Beach, East parking lot
Welton’s Seafood Market 940 Laskin Rd, Virginia Beach, parking lot |
Fourteen local restaurants have made an environmental commitment to recycle and donate oyster shell from your meal. In 2018, we collected 2,700 bushels of oyster shell. In 2020 and, we exceeded that amount, collecting almost 9,000 bushels of shell, the most amount of shell collected through the S.O.S. program on record. That is enough to build an acre of reef!
Each S.O.S. participant is inspiring our Virginia Beach community to restore the native oyster population, one bushel at a time! We hope you will patronize them and thank them for their participation:
1608 Crafthouse 1608 Pleasure House Rd, Virginia Beach
Abbey Road Restaurant 203 22nd St, Virginia Beach
Captain George’s Seafood Restaurant 1956 Laskin Rd, Virginia Beach
CP Shuckers (Oceanfront) 2407 Pacific Ave, Virginia Beach
CP Shuckers (Bayside) 3232 Shore Dr
Virginia Beach Dockside Seafood & Fishing Center 3311 Shore Dr, Virginia Beach
Lucky Oyster 2165 General Booth Blvd #154, Virginia Beach
Ocean Eddie’s Seafood Restaurant 1415 Atlantic Ave, Virginia Beach
Rockafeller’s Restaurant 308 Mediterranean Ave, Virginia Beach
Steinhilber’s Restaurant 653 Thalia Rd, Virginia Beach
Tautog’s 205 23rd St, Virginia Beach
The Atlantic on Pacific 3004 Pacific Ave, Virginia Beach
Simple Eats Restaurant 3152 Shore Dr, Virginia Beach
Arbuckles 4101 Atlantic Ave, Virginia Beach, VA
501 Kitchen and Bar 501 Birdneck Rd N, Virginia Beach, VA 23451
The Process

After recycled shell is picked up at each restaurant and public drop off site by an LRNow staff member, it is taken to a storage site to sit and cure (rid of any potentially harmful bacteria). After several months, the cured shell is placed back into the water to build sanctuary reefs in Virginia Beach’s waterways. Sanctuary oyster reefs create habitat for hundreds of marine species, filter and clean surrounding water and provide a new home for spat (oyster larva) to settle and grow new shell.
Lynnhaven River NOW is a proud partner of the Chesapeake Oyster Alliance: A coalition of over thirty partner groups including nonprofits, community organizations, oyster growers, and others dedicated to helping recover the Bay’s oyster population by putting 10 billion oysters in the Bay by 2025. Currently the Oyster Alliance is at 1.5 billion building toward 10 billion.