Salt & Meadow Partners
We’re proud to feature products from Steamboat Wharf Oyster Co., Miss Mary Seafood, Asdon Mills, Sam Rust Seafood, Little Bay Seafood, Overholt Beef, Chapel Hill Beef and Locksley Estate Farmstead.
Sam Rust Seafood
At the Tides Inn, we support our local community by sourcing the very best produce and products from farmers and fishers. In this new spotlight, we will feature key purveyors in our Northern Neck region.
Samuel Cornelius Rust I, fondly known as Cap’n Sam, aimed not to create the largest seafood distributor, but rather the most trusted one — where relationships and trust were as important as the product itself. From these humble beginnings, Sam Rust Seafood has grown from a small shed, housing just a few coolers of seafood to a full-service wholesale seafood operation located in Hampton, Virginia.
Today, Sam Rust Seafood operates from a 50,000-square-foot facility, continuing to blend the traditional values established by Cap’n Sam with the advancements of modern technology. Four generations later, the company remains family-owned, staying true to its core mission of delivering quality seafood and fostering long-lasting relationships.
Steamboat Wharf Oysters
Thomas Hyde never intended to become an oyster farmer. He grew up in the Northern Neck and harvested oysters in high school for fun, for gas money. But when he and his wife, Callie Robinson Hyde, relocated to Hyde’s mom’s farm during the pandemic, oysters became their livelihood.
The couple scattered some seeds on Hyde’s family oyster lease, and the small hobby soon grew into a business: Steamboat Wharf Oyster Co.
The company produces a Top Shelf cocktail oyster—a plump, medium salinity varietal with a cream shell and a deep cup. “It’s a very typical Rappahannock oyster—a little sweeter, a little meatier,” Hyde says.
The Tides Inn has between 500 and 1,000 of the bivalves delivered each week. They are served raw at Salt & Meadow, topped with a seaweed salad and sesame seeds and paired with cocktail sauce and a mignonette. The resort offers opportunities to learn more about oysters and their importance to the local ecosystem through two immersive oyster farm experiences, including our signature Chesapeake Goldouting, and self-exploration along our living shoreline. And we recycle all of the leftover shells to help provide a habitat for wild oysters and other animals.
📸: Chris M Rogers