This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Kyle Needham. In 2011, he co-founded Oyster Party with Samuel Keller. The company serves private parties, weddings and corporate events by shucking oysters on the half shell, popping up raw bars and seafood towers, providing caviar bumps and more. Oyster Party hosts pop-up events at Smorgasburg, in Manhattan’s FiDi neighborhood and the Hudson Valley and has expanded beyond New York to the Tri-State area.
What did your day-to-day look like before you started your side hustle?
Before I started Oyster Party, I worked for a wholesale seafood company in Manhattan and retail fish markets in Columbus Circle and Grand Central.
What inspired you to start your side hustle?
I started shucking oysters at parties throughout Brooklyn. My love for oysters really took off then because I had more access to them and began eating them regularly. The enthusiasm that people showed when they would eat them after I would shuck them was palpable and continues to be to this day.
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