9 April 9-15, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | Shell Game Can Miami become the South’s next great oyster capital? BY GRANT ALBERT J ust talk to Josh Wilkie and Fabio Galarce, founders of the new Ever- glades Oysters company, for five minutes, and you’ll find that these guys are passionate. About what, you may be wondering? Bivalve mollusks (mussels, clams, and oysters). Oysters have been part of Florida culture for millennia, dating back to the Calusa tribe (the “Shell Indians”), who made the protein- rich oyster a linchpin of their diet and cul- ture. They used the filter feeders’ shells to create literal pyramids. Galarce adds that these pyramids were no shorter than the Pyr- amid of Giza. Indeed, the original Florida Coat of Arms features what appears to be a Calusa Native American in the foreground with a sailing steamship and tall “mountains” set against a rising sun. So, how are these ancient mollusks enter- ing a new era in South Florida, where they may just change the entire Gulf oyster indus- try, for good? You can thank an unlikely duo with deep-sea dreams. Last year, Galarce heard of a 74-acre oyster farm lease deep in the Cape Romano-Ten Thousand Islands Aquatic Preserve, approxi- mately an hour from Port in Everglades City and near a shark nursery. Although the busi- ness graduate from Florida State University describes himself as a foodie and a carnivore who is always looking for new ventures, an oyster farm was entirely new terrain, espe- cially one so remote. Therefore, he knew this could not be a one-person operation. “Josh and I were spearfishing. It was just one of those ideas when we were on the boat — ‘Hey, what about that oyster farm?’” Any nightlife veteran knows Galarce as a local music heavyweight. He is the co- founder of the Eagle Room and half of the DJ duo, Dude Skywalker. Wilkie was a pitcher for the Washington Nationals of the MLB for seven years. Upon retirement, he worked for startups that led him to Miami. The most beneficial notch on his resume: being a tried- and-true South Carolinian from a long line of oyster farmers in his family. “My first thought was going back to South Carolina to get my family’s oysters,” Wilkie recalls on the com- pany’s inception, “but that wasn’t going to be possible. It was really just seeing the market opportunity here and going out to fundraise. I saw that this was something we could do.” The two, who met through mutual friends, soon began working on a proof of concept and business plan. They had to obtain permission from vari- ous arms of the state and were eventually be- stowed the largest aquaculture lease in the Gulf, according to Galarce, with over 200,000 oysters, nestled below, like blooming flower beds. It was then that the two discovered a sobering truth. “The big overarching problem is that the Gulf oyster is functionally extinct,” explains Galarce. “More than 85 percent of the reefs are dead.” They realized that aquaculture “is very bootstrapped with only small farmers. In fact, the state issues two to five acres at a time, and the farms are small,” Galarce says about the dearth of farms. Oyster farming is embattled on two ends. First, there are the West Coast, Prince Edward Island, and Northeast hegemo- nies, where South Florida restaurants typically get their supply. The second, as the Miami Herald detailed in their profile of Everglades Oysters, is from “overharvesting, oil spills and other pollution, rising salinity and increasingly intense hurricanes driven by climate change.” Of course, the two care about their bottom line, but Wilkie and Galarce also aim for al- truistic goals to regenerate the South Florida oyster farm, return to the halcyon days of oys- ter farming, and dilute what the two call a “prejudice.” “Southern oysters” sit in warm brackish water, as opposed to other oysters that deal with seasonal changes in water tem- perature. The long-standing misconception is that an oyster lying deep in warm, dirty water is more likely to harbor the potentially deadly Vibrio vulnificus bacteria. The Herald profile noted that, despite the oysters’ ability to filter fifty gallons of water a day, which leads to cleaner waters, the mollusk may absorb the Vibrio vulnificus bacteria into its flesh. The two explain that this bacteria is com- mon to all oysters and can also be contracted through means other than eating oysters, such as swimming in coastal waters, preexist- ing conditions like hepatitis, and, according to the Centers for Disease Control, “taking medicine to decrease stomach acid levels.” The warmer waters undoubtedly lead to a faster rate of bacterial growth; however, the state mandates stringent requirements for oys- ter storage. “We have to be in the cooler by a certain time,” says Galarce on how to abide by state law. “It’s a race to get them cold so the bacteria can’t explode in growth. The irony is that there are Vibrio cases up in Massachusetts and all over the Northeast, and then prejudiced everything down here because chefs are taught that cooler water means that they are safer.” Oyster farming is not an easy task, despite the oyster’s ancient appearance and seem- ingly simplistic, stationary life. It requires a considerable amount of capital, machinery, and logistics to raise the oysters and bring them to harvest. “We started thinking of it as a blue-tech project,” elucidates Galarce. “It would take a huge financial commitment. We’re trying to have a big impact and a big scale.” The company added Ross LaBrie, co- founder of III Points, and Harvey Pacha, founder of the production team Arca Build, as partners. “They are helping us to build the most incredible oyster farm and bring world- class production experience,” Galarce adds about the recent partnership. “It’s a local proj- ect. Everyone on the team is a person Josh or I have worked with in the past.” The core team is now roughly a ten-person operation. In addition to costs, harvesting oysters takes time. The male oysters release their sperm into the water for the female oyster to receive and fertilize. Fertilized eggs develop into free-swimming larvae that drift for a few weeks before attaching to a hard surface to undergo metamorphosis into juvenile oysters known as spat. Everglades Oysters grow their own spat, which takes five months to mature. The company operates as a collective in the meantime, partnering with ten other Gulf- based farms to harvest mature oysters and supply them directly to forty restaurants across Miami and South Florida. The list in- cludes the Stubborn Seed on South Beach, Over Under in downtown, Regatta Grove, and Sunny’s in North Miami. They hope to con- tract with 100 restaurants by the end of the year. “If we can get to scale, that means we can turn South Florida into the new wave of oyster culture,” posits Galarce. “We thrive in ▼ Café Photo by Fabio Galarce Photo by Andres Mattutat Oyster farming is not an easy task. It requires a considerable amount of capital, machinery, and logistics to raise the oysters and bring them to harvest. >> p10
