The 6th Annual High West Oyster Festival was Tuesday Night, April 4th at The Boulder Theater. Always a great party with competitions in oyster shucking and oyster eating, live music, and a ton of amazing food. All proceeds from ticket sales and raffle go to the YWCA, an organization that has been providing vital services to women, children, and families of Boulder County since 1922. The Jax Fish House family are generous folks who created this amazing event for all to hang loose and raise a big chunk of change for local charities. Each year a different charity is granted the event awards, compounding into a tremendous impact for the greater good of the community. It is not uncommon for the event to raise money well into 6 figures! We would love to help other restaurant organizations like Jax have powerful and fun events like these!
If you enjoy freshly shucked oysters, live Louisiana craw-fish boils, Cajun peel N’ eat shrimp and the 7 horn sounds of New Orleans inspired Guerrilla Fanfare – put this one in your calendar for 2018!
High West Oyster Fest cannot happen without its sponsors, and we’d like to mention the wonderful oyster companies that helped put together the 2500 oysters everyone enjoyed. We want to thank:
Harbor House Chesapeake Oysters
Penn Cove Shellfish’s: Purple Mountain, Deer Creek, Patriot Point
Cape Cod Shellfish donated Wellfleet, Duxbury, Cupids Arrow, Sex on the Bay, and North Shore Golds
Rappahannock Oyster company not only sent Rappahannock and their new Rochambeau Oysters, they also sent Kevin McEligot the Operations Manager, and Patrick Oiver the Director of Farms to help customers learn all there is to know about oysters!
The Oyster shucking competition was won by the quick hands of Ben Wolven from Colt and Grey. Watch Greg shuck 3 oysters in 15 seconds!
The Oyster eating competition was an upset from the 12 year veteran and former Northeast Seafood employee who has won the last 10 of 12 competitions…the man they call Guido! A new oyster eating sheriff is in town, and if he’s able to repeat his win, he’ll have to get a good nick-name, right now he goes by the name of Mike.
Thanks to those at Jax that make this a special event each year! and hopefully it inspires others to get out and create fun events that pull employees, vendors, and the community together for a great time and a great cause.
Thanks for supporting this event, the articles, and pictures! This was my 6th time competing in the Jax Fish House’s Oyster Eating Competition in Boulder. My previous wins were in 2011 with a 4 person team and in 2012 with a 2 person team. This win is the most meaningful so far. It is my first win invididually, but more importantly my first time winning against Steve “Guido” my arch rival. I have been called “The People’s Champ” in years prior, I’ll stick with that. See you next year when I defend the title!