Restaurants & Bars

Meet Bed-Stuy's Baddest 'Mothershucker'

This mothershucker would like to sell you an oyster.

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Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival Presented By Capital One ñ Oyster Bash Presented By Barnegat Oyster Collec
Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival Presented By Capital One ñ Oyster Bash Presented By Barnegat Oyster Collec (Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images for NYCWFF)

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — Bed-Stuy is home to one bad mothershucker. Benjamin Harney is an entrepreneurial restauranteur taking Bed-Stuy by storm with his bright red bow-tie, a fresh selection of oysters and the refurbished ice cream cart that bears the name "Mothershucker."

Harney's ice cold oyster shucking cart launched in July 2019 and has since made its debut in businesses and festivals across Bed-Stuy.

"Now this man right here is one mean Mothershucker," Harney wrote on Instagram, next to a video of a colleague digging his blade into an oyster. "Ladies and gentlemen and oyster lovers of all kinds we present to you THEREALMOTHERSHUCKERS!"

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Harney, who regularly sells his wares at Eugene & Co. and Bed-Vyne Brew on Tompkins Avenue, was recently profiled by Edible Brooklyn with whom he shared the story of his novel business model.

The Brooklyn business man got his city start as an oyster shucker at Williamburg's Maison Premiere, then developed his skills at Grand Army and the Standard Hotel, Edible reports.

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Harney told Edible he was inspired by "the Oyster King of New York," the son of freed slaves who sold oysters on Wall Street before the turn of the 19th Century.

View this post on Instagram
 Oysters are often seen as a luxury food now, but throughout much of early American history they were so abundant that people from all classes regularly ate them. In coastal cities, you could have them on the street or in dingy bars for practically nothing. In late 1800s New York, a man named Thomas Downing built an empire out of an oyster bar. But here's the thing: he was a black man doing this during the era of slavery. Joanne Hyppolite, curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, shared Downing's story with Francis Lam. If their discussion makes you hungry for oysters, satisfy your craving with our recipe for Classic Creamy Oyster Stew. https://www.splendidtable.org/story/how-thomas-downing-became-black-oyster-king-new-york. #oysters #oysternyc #nycoysters #rebuildnyc #nychistory #rawbar #oystershucking #oystershucker #shucking #seafood
A post shared by MOTHER SHUCKER (@therealmothershuckers) on Sep 24, 2019 at 7:54am PDT

To that end, he began shucking oysters at events and private parties under the name Marauder Shuckers. There was only one problem.

“The constant joke was friends would say, ‘You’re a bad mothershucker, huh?’ and I hated it," Harney told Edible. "But after a while I was like, ‘Uh huh, I am a bad mothershucker!’”

So when Harney came across an abandoned ice cream cart, he snagged it, attached a sign with his new monicker on the front and a Bed-Stuy business was born.

Mothershuckers makes an appearance every Friday for a raw bar happy hour at Eugene & Co. from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and is available for private events, according to the company's Instagram.

The goal, Harney told Edible, is to bring the event of oyster eating back into the Black community.

“I want [eating oysters] to be more of a common experience for everyone," he told Edible. “I want to expose people of color, people who look like me."

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