Spring Shucking

Enjoy an oyster-centric weekend getaway in Mathews County.

Oysters on the grill at The Inn at Tabbs Creek.

Photo by Lori Dusenberry

Check in to the quiet waterfront Inn at Tabbs Creek in Mathews County for a briny, oyster-filled spring retreat. On the weekends of March 13-15, March 20-22, April 3-5, April 10-12, and April 24-26, the inn hosts Saturday oyster roasts. 

Enjoy oysters from Chapel Creek Oyster Company’s Trey Sowers, as well as other local watermen, freshly shucked and roasted with butter and garlic, alongside wine and cheese. After happy hour, you can also tuck into barbecue for a surf and turf meal. Inn owners Greg and Lori Dusenberry have hosted fall oyster roasts for years, and the events became so popular that they began adding spring dates in 2019. “It’s something everyone looks forward to,” says Lori.

Guests can also charter deadrise boat cruises with Sowers, departing from the docks behind the inn for sunset cruises and afternoon boat tours beginning in mid-April. Sowers demonstrates how to shuck and leads an oyster tasting on the boat. Tasting oysters is “like a wine tasting,” explains Lori: They taste different depending on the “river, creek, farm, or mud where they grow due to the minerals in the water.” The inn also has its own reef through the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s oyster gardening program, and you may get to taste some of its oysters at one of the roasts.

For those even more interested in seeing the life of an oyster from water to mouth, Sowers—who grows oysters for The Boathouse restaurants—will take guests on a tour of the Chapel Creek Oyster Company farm on his working barge.

For a well-rounded weekend in Mathews, Lori suggests paddleboarding and kayaking—which you can launch directly from the docks at the inn—visiting the New Point Comfort Lighthouse, checking out Bethel Beach Natural Area Preserve, and spending time in downtown Mathews. InnAtTabbsCreek.com


This article originally appeared in our April 2020 issue.

Ashley Hunter
Ashley Hunter Sheridan is a Virginia native and a Virginia Tech graduate. A former digital editor of Virginia Living, she loves all things food, wine, and spirits.
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