Worth Leaving Town For: Taylor Shellfish Farms & Chuckanut Drive

The news spread like wildfire: "It's going to stop raining... on a Saturday!" What could we do with this rare opportunity? Stuff ourselves with oysters at Taylor Shellfish Farms, of course! While it's perfectly acceptable to eat oysters in the rain, I prefer to enjoy my oysters outside at sunset, next to the water they were just living in, with a blowtorch in my hand.

Taylor’s has more popular swanky downtown restaurants, but the farm is not a restaurant, it’s an experience.

Taylor Shellfish Farms at night // Kate Bobal

If you want to work up an appetite and keep the theme going, you can hike the five-ish miles to Oyster Dome for a fantastic vista of Samish Bay. Any of the hikes off of Chuckanut Drive are enjoyable during winter when the higher country is snowed in, and there are campsites at Lily and Lizard Lakes if you can't wait for spring to go backpacking.

A hike is not necessary for incredible views on Chuckanut Drive though. There are several Instagram-worthy overlooks on the side of the road, or you can visit Larabee, Washington’s first state park. This is something I always take my out-of-state visitors to do to get an idea of how wonderful it is to live in Washington.

The sign for Taylor's is easy to miss, and the one-lane dirt road is a bit gnarly, but the lack of crowds at the farm surprises me. This family-owned business has been around since the 1890’s but has somehow managed to stay one of the area’s best-kept secrets.

The view from the roadside overlook on Chuckanut // Kate Bobal

I’m sure Taylor’s restaurants are fantastic too, but it doesn’t get more #tidetotable than the farm store. You can use their picnic tables and charcoal grills while smelling the briny water and feeling the crunch of oyster shells under your feet.

Taylor’s is a leader in sustainable seafood farming, and their Fanny Bay location recently won the “Where to Dine Awards Best” Sustainable Seafood Award, and there is a lot more to Taylor's than just oysters. They sell live crabs at the farm store—and fresh mussels, clams and scallops too—if you want to take something home to cook for your friends who don't appreciate fresh air and impressive scenery.

You can get beer, wine, and a few sides here, and there is an enclosed area to make this activity a safe choice for Washington winters.

The lighthouse at Taylor’s // Kate Bobal

On this trip to Taylor’s, we bought the grill kit that comes with charcoal, lighter fluid and a rather large torch lighter (not an actual blowtorch) along with some oysters to grill and few oysters to eat raw at the recommendation of the very helpful staff.

After realizing that none of my friends had ever used a charcoal grill before, we miraculously managed to get the coals glowing without singeing our eyebrows. By the time I had finished running around the picnic area taking pictures of the sunset and shouting, “I can’t believe how beautiful this is!” I had about five hundred pictures of Samish Bay and two dozen grilled oysters.

We shucked our delicious oysters under a canopy of white lights while the employees listened to bluegrass music and shut the place down. I can’t imagine a better dinner or a more quintessential Pacific Northwest experience.