Gulf spill impacts Danville seafood businesses

Local seafood restaurants and retailers are feeling the impact of the Gulf oil spill.

“It’s going to affect all of us in one way or another and it already has,” said Trish Boyle, owner of Fish Bones in Danville.

For the local seafood retailers, the impacts are both direct and indirect. Oysters are hard to come by and seafood prices increased. Restaurants also see their customer counts decline as the Gulf oil spill and media attention made some customers more wary of seafood.

“Right now, nobody’s getting any oysters,” Boyle said.

About 60 percent of the oysters eaten in the United States come from the Gulf of Mexico. During the summer, Fish Bones usually gets oysters from Louisiana suppliers. The demand also made available oysters more expensive, so Boyle most likely won’t offer them.

That will hurt her business around Christmastime, when oysters are a big seller. No one knows what the oil spill effects will be on future oyster harvests.

“It’s going to be really bleak around Christmastime,” she said, adding sales from dinners, lunches and gluten-free products will help sustain business.

Fish Bones still offers a variety of other items, like overseas shrimp, Maine scallops, North Carolina rainbow trout, Chesapeake Bay blue crabs and wild salmon from Alaska. Boyle labels all the seafood to let customers know where it comes from.

Greensboro, N.C.-based Libby Hill Restaurants Inc., which operates a restaurant on Riverside Drive in Danville, agreed that finding oysters would be challenging.

President Justin Conrad said Libby Hill restaurants still have an oyster supply to last them through October. After that, he doesn’t know if the restaurants will have oysters. The company won’t carry a product unless the quality is good.

In anticipation of the continued impacts in the Gulf, Libby Hill also started importing shrimp from Guyana because of its high quality popcorn shrimp, Conrad said. Shrimp is Libby Hill’s No. 2 seller behind flounder.

Libby Hill would rather support the domestic industry.

“We’ll see what happens,” Conrad said. “If we can support the guys in the Gulf, that’s what we want to do.”

Although more than 70 percent of Gulf fisheries remain open, speculation drove the cost of shrimp up as people scrambled for the product all at once not knowing how the oil spill would affect the shrimp supply, he added. While the price came back down some, the price of shrimp is still double that of last year.

Libby Hill restaurant operators also receive several questions a day about the seafood, which the company encourages.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chemically tests seafood samples from the Gulf and hasn’t found contaminants. Although the seafood is safe, Conrad wonders if the Gulf oil spill attention is keeping customers away.

“A lot of people have been scared to eat seafood,” he said.

While summers tend to be slower for Libby Hill restaurants, customer counts have decreased and sales are 10 to 15 percent off typical summers, Conrad said.

“I just want to assure folks that when they come to our restaurants they’re eating good quality seafood,” Conrad said. “If we have any hesitation about quality or safety, we’re just not going to have the product. That should give folks some comfort.”

Owner Bobby James of Seafood and More on South Main Street said the effects of the Gulf spill have increased all the fresh seafood prices.

James’ suppliers are having a hard time getting any fresh fish. Fresh shrimp is harder to get, he added,

James also caters and had been using fresh oysters and shrimp for those dinners, but now he must use other products.

“My oyster prices, they went up sky high,” James said. “It’s hard to get any right now.”

James also believes the Gulf spill made people more wary of eating seafood, even in Danville. Customers ask if they will find oil in their fish.

One week this past summer the business averaged $27 in sales per day. Yet, he said Seafood and More is holding its own.

“We’re still here and we’re cooking the best quality seafood we possibly can and we’re not going to give them anything with any oil in it,” James said.