[upbeat music] [ocean lapping] [birds squawking] - So Cousins' Oysters really is the premier pop-up oyster bar on the Outer Banks.

Kind of the first catering company to come to your house, the grill, raw and roasted oysters, locally-sourced, maybe harvested that day within 48 hours, guaranteed.

So just fresh local oysters anywhere you want them.

We do a lot of pop-ups.

You can find us at the Blue Point on Thursdays during the fall.

My name's Marty Martier.

I'm half of Cousins' Oysters.

Happy to be here here with my cousin.

- And I'm Johnny Dilworth, the other half.

We just kind of fill in the cracks for each other, and, you know, over five years now we've kind of put together this great oyster service that we felt like was much needed here in the Outer Banks.

- And we really are cousins too.

[upbeat music continues] - I always say we kind of channel our grandfathers sometimes, especially when we're doing like, pop-ups, like.

You know, I'm kind of in the front shucking, and he's more back of house on the grill.

And we think of like, his grandfather Bob and our shared grandfather, Pappy or Chuck.

And he was like, real personable and like, over the top, and Bob's there, he'd be like, "Get out."

- Yeah, yeah.

He was quiet, strong type, that would just be kind of scary in the background.

[laughs] - Yeah.

And like, we know the day of who needs to be which grandfather.

- Yeah, exactly.

- You know?

It's pretty funny.

[upbeat music continues] [oysters clattering] [bright music] [ocean lapping] We kind of use the grill as kind of like your gateway to enjoying them raw.

Our flavors were originally kind of inspired by like, some sentimental stuff.

Like, one of our most popular grilled oysters, we call it The Pappy, after our grandfather.

He's Calabrian, so we have a Calabrian chili herb butter with Pecorino Romano and capers, and some lemon, and white wine and herbs.

And you have such a great vessel for flavor, and it's fun for us to kind of open people's minds a little bit with like, "Wow, I never had anything like this."

And then eventually they'll start eating them raw and just be hooked, hopefully.

- [Marty] Right.

You know, our mission at Cousins' Oysters is just to kind of be that bridge between the farm and the table.

So that's us.

It's like we're kind of the middleman of like, working very closely with these relationships with the farmers that we've built and being hands-on out there, harvesting as much as we can personally.

[bright music continues] [perky music] - My name's Hans Tyler Hofe, and I'm co-owner and operator of Kinnakeet Oyster Company.

So Johnny and Marty, we have a mutual friend from Rodanthe who's big in the restaurant scene.

He knew that we had started this farm and he said, "Hey, I wanna link you up with these guys.

They started a catering, you know, a pop-up, you know, raw bar kind of thing, and you need to give them a shout."

And at that point we had just kind of started harvesting.

So we have cousins, and Kinnakeet, we've kind of come up at the same time.

- He called us out of the blue, somehow heard, and, you know, he was picking our brain on the market and what people were after out here.

And we kind of formed a good partnership with him early on.

And over the years, getting to know him and his process.

- Most farm-raised oysters, like, not all, but most are raised on the top of the water column.

So nothing's touching the bottom.

They're either in floating gear or a suspended long line.

So these bags hang from a wire in the first couple of feet of the water column.

It's all about just kind of harnessing the wave energy from the wind, and it's just a constant kinetic energy over the course of their life that's pruning the oyster and producing this really dense shell clean.

- We can tell while shucking oysters if they haven't been handled properly or.

- Absolutely.

- Or if they've been forced to grow in too tight of cages with other oysters, and it's, yeah, you can tell a happy oyster for sure.

[mellow music] [ocean lapping] You just see his dedication, and, you know, he's made it his whole life really.

And, you know, he personally feels responsible for the 750,000 lives he has in the water that he maintains and invests in for his future every year.

The handling of the oysters and the meticulous care is something you're not gonna get with a really large-scale farm.

- When people buy from us, it's like, this is my house.

I live upstairs with my wife.

I look at the farm from my couch, as I'm drinking coffee.

You're getting a piece of us, 100%.

So when people do find us, you know, I'm like, they're my friend.

I can tell you the age of every oyster, you know, the story.

So you're getting that.

It's just, that's that kind of farm to table thing, you know, that's that connection with your food.

I mean, it doesn't get any more real.

[mellow music continues] [upbeat music] - [Johnny] So yeah, the healthiest oysters come from areas that, you know, you have an influx of salt water, of course, and then you have clean water, and then you have a lot of wave and wind energy.

And I can't think of an area within hundreds of miles that suits that as well as the Outer Banks and the Pamlico Sound.

- [Marty] People do kind of underestimate the oyster production out of the Pamlico Sound, especially on the Outer Bank out here.

- The biggest is that they're just, they're putting the Outer Banks, Hatteras Island, Eastern North Carolina, showcasing the oyster of North Carolina, which people are sleeping on North Carolina.

They don't really realize what we've got going on here.

But guys like that, they do a good job of showing what we got.

[upbeat music continues] - [Presenter] Cousins' Oysters is based on the Outer Banks, and hosts pop-ups and events around the area.

For upcoming events and offerings, visit cousinsoysters.com.