There is a version of eating oysters in New York that involves a reservation, a wine list and a bill that requires thinking about. There is another version that involves walking into a neighbourhood restaurant in the late afternoon and eating a dozen for the price of a sandwich. The Mermaid Inn built its whole business on the second one.
Happy hour here runs on different clocks at each location and the window is short, so which branch you pick decides whether you make it. Ask Karpo which Mermaid is closest and whether the oyster hour is still running right now.
The oyster hour
Discounted oysters run daily across the group's locations, at somewhere between a dollar and a dollar fifty each depending on the branch and the day. The window is short — roughly the late afternoon into early evening, with Chelsea running around 4:30 to 6pm and other locations keeping their own timings.
That narrowness is the catch and it is worth planning around rather than hoping for. A dozen oysters at a dollar fifty is nine dollars less than a cocktail; a dozen at full price twenty minutes later is a different decision entirely. Check the specific branch before you set off.
It is genuinely the cheapest reliable oyster in Manhattan at a proper restaurant, which is the qualifier that matters. There are cheaper oysters at counters and there are better oysters at expensive rooms, and there is very little in between except this.
What the money actually buys is worth being honest about. Happy-hour oysters at any restaurant are the smaller, more plentiful, farmed East Coast varieties rather than the named single-origin ones on the full raw-bar list, and they are shucked to order at a bar in front of you rather than plated in a kitchen. That is the correct trade at this price and it is why the format works here and falls apart at places that try it with expensive product.
They come with the standard accompaniments — mignonette, cocktail sauce, lemon — and the only real technique involved is checking that the oyster has been cut cleanly off the bottom shell before you tip it. If it resists, it has not, and it is entirely normal to ask.
The lobster roll
The other thing the group is known for is a lobster roll on brioche, and it is the New England-style cold version — chunks of claw and knuckle meat lightly dressed, on a toasted sweet bun, rather than the warm butter-poached Connecticut style.
Brioche rather than a split-top hot dog roll is a deviation from the traditional form and it is a deliberate one; the sweetness and the richness of the bun sit against the lemon and mayonnaise in the dressing. Purists object. Most people order it again.
It is not cheap and it is not part of the happy-hour pricing. Treat it as the reason to stay after the oysters run out rather than as a bargain.
Three locations, three different rooms
Chelsea at 227 10th Avenue sits right by the northern reaches of the High Line and Hudson Yards, which makes it a natural end point for a walk down the park. It is the busiest of the group for exactly that reason.
The Upper West Side at 335 Columbus Avenue is the neighbourhood room — quieter, more local, and the easiest of the three to walk into without a plan. If the goal is to sit at a bar with oysters and not be surrounded by people who are also visiting, this is the one.
The Times Square location, operating as Mermaid Oyster Bar, is the pragmatic option in a neighbourhood that is otherwise very hard to eat well in. That alone gives it a purpose.
What to order beyond the oysters
The raw bar generally is where the value sits — clams, shrimp, and the plateau-style shared platters if there are several of you. Beyond that the menu runs a straightforward New England seafood-house line: chowder, fried fish, whole fish, a few pastas.
The chowder is reliable and the fried options are competent. Nobody is coming here for a revelation, and the restaurants do not pretend otherwise. What they do is cook fresh seafood properly at a fair price in comfortable rooms, seven days a week, which is a considerably rarer offer than it sounds.
There is a complimentary chocolate pudding at the end of the meal, served in an espresso cup, which has been part of the group's routine for years and is the kind of small thing people remember about a restaurant.
How to use it
The correct use is as the first stop of an evening rather than the destination. Arrive at the start of the oyster hour, eat a dozen or two at the bar, have a drink, and go on to dinner somewhere else. That is a genuinely good hour and it costs very little.
The alternative use — a full seafood dinner — is fine and is not what the place is for. You will pay ordinary restaurant prices for good ordinary seafood, which is a reasonable transaction and not the thing worth writing about.
Bar seats are the ones to want, and at the start of happy hour they go quickly. Ten minutes early is the difference between a stool and a table on most evenings.
Practical notes
Locations at 227 10th Avenue in Chelsea, 335 Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side, and Mermaid Oyster Bar in Times Square. Discounted oysters run daily at roughly $1 to $1.50 each depending on branch and day, in a short late-afternoon-to-early-evening window — Chelsea runs around 4:30 to 6pm and the others vary, so check the specific location. The lobster roll is the New England cold style on a brioche bun and is not part of happy-hour pricing. Chelsea is closest to the High Line; the Upper West Side is the quietest. Aim for a bar seat and arrive ten minutes before the window opens.
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Ask Karpo first
The oyster hour is short and runs on a different clock at each of the three rooms, which makes turning up ten minutes late an expensive mistake. Ask Karpo which Mermaid location is closest to you, whether the discounted window is still open right now, and where to go afterwards once it closes.
