- I have a setback like this.

You know, it's kind of like starting from scratch, and it is discouraging, but there's, you know, I try and keep in mind that, you know, it's the journey, you know, that you're supposed to enjoy, and it's hard to have that mindset, but I try to remind myself of that.

- Welcome to "One on One."

I'm Ian Donnis.

Since opening in 2009, Matunuck Oyster Bar has grown into one of Rhode Island's best-known dining destinations.

Owner Perry Raso started digging clams as a boy before building his South Kingstown business from the ground up.

But a May 2025 fire destroyed the iconic venue.

Now Matunuck Oyster Bar is being rebuilt while Raso serves his famous seafood at a temporary location across the street.

So what has the former schoolboy wrestler learned about grappling with an unexpected challenge as he works to bring his restaurant back?

Perry Raso, welcome to "One on One."

- Thanks.

- You started raking clams when you were 12 years old.

How did that spark your lifelong fascination with the ocean and seafood?

- You spending an enormous number of hours out there.

It wasn't intentional.

It just I think it just something that happened over time.

I started to just get used to being out on the water, you know, not the open ocean but the shallows, the salt ponds.

And just kind of became part of who I am.

- When you started your oyster farming business in 2002, you went a couple of years without taking any revenue.

How did you go from that into running a very successful restaurant business?

- Well, you know, starting a oyster farm's very difficult.

The first few years, like you said, there's no revenue.

So I continued to scuba dive for steamers and littleneck clams in the pond over here, which created some revenue.

But I also, the big help, was a grant I got from Senator Jack Reed that helped teach people about the realities of aquaculture and foster the acceptance of the industry in Rhode Island.

And that really helped, that three-year grant helped me get on my feet, and it also, you know, allowed me to, you know, have the job of teaching people, mostly students, about aquaculture and the ecosystem services they provide to foster the industry.

And I think it worked.

At the time I was the 16th farmer in the state, and now there's well over 80 farms in the state.

- And we'll talk a little bit later about the growth of the oyster farming industry in Rhode Island.

But going back to those early days when you weren't really bringing in much revenue, did you ever think of giving up at that time?

- No.

I didn't necessarily know that oyster farming would be my future, and I didn't certainly never had any idea that I'd wind up in the restaurant business, but I did, you know, getting that grant to teach people about aquaculture allowed me to, you know, have the job of teaching people while I started the farm.

And once that three-year grant period was over, I had product to sell, so I was starting to sell to Boston, New York and then Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, D.C.

And I realized the more I put into this, the more I can get out of it.

And so I kept on investing in everything I was making in back into the farm and grew the farm.

And it appreciated every year.

So every, you know, after you get your first crop, you, you know, you'll always have a crop to sell as long as you don't have any disease or mortality event.

- As you say, you were selling seafood across the country.

That led to the opening in 2009 of your signature restaurant, Matunuck Oyster Bar, which was a runaway success from the start.

It developed a following, and the size of the restaurant grew and grew over time.

Were you surprised by how successful that was?

- Shocked.

I was shocked.

I mean, I was, you know, quietly optimistic at the time in 2009 when I opened it that it would be busy, but I never thought it would be as busy as it was.

I don't think anybody did.

- The restaurant business is notoriously difficult with a high rate of failure.

Did you think about that before you started, and was there any steps that you took to try and do to ensure that your restaurant was a success?

- Yeah, well, I bought the piece of property that the restaurant was on because I needed the commercial docks behind it for my oyster boats.

I didn't have any commercial access, and I knew I needed that spot.

It was the low of the economy in 2008, 2009, the winter.

And so I was able to, you know, get it with a farm service agency loan.

And the only way you get a farm service agency loan is prove that you can't get another loan.

And I didn't have any real estate, so I certainly couldn't get another loan.

So, you know, I got a farm service agency loan to purchase the restaurant, and I figured the first step is to figure out if the restaurant works, and when it fails, I'll either live here or I'll make it a fish market.

Either way, I need the location for the docks, and it was successful.

So much like the oyster farm, I continued to invest in the restaurant and, you know, and build that business.

- How has your role at the restaurant changed over time?

Do you still go out harvesting oysters, and is your role different?

Has your role changed over time, or is it similar to how it was when you started?

- It's changed over time.

When I first started, I was still going out to the oyster farm every day as I was before the restaurant, thinking that was going to be, you know, what I continued to do.

And I'd just go into the restaurant at night and, you know, grab a beer and a burger or something.

And then I'll never forget coming into the lunch the first day, and, you know, people were everywhere, and I, you know, I just, you know, took my waders off and just worked in the restaurant busing tables and gradually, you know, developing our, we had a lot of issues.

I was going to tables, and I still go to tables today to make sure everything's good, but back then I would go to tables and check in, and pretty much I was seeing what was wrong at each table and try and make it right.

And then my feeling was that if I can get through this summer with a good reputation, when we close for the winter, we'll fix all these things that we got to fix, and we'll come into next summer strong.

We never closed for the winter.

People just kept coming.

So it was really, yeah, unexpected.

- Perry, your original restaurant suffered a devastating fire in May 2025.

What was the first thing that went through your head when you learned about that?

- It was like 3:30 in the morning when I got the call and realized it was serious and, you know, really driving down and seeing the officers and the firefighters.

My initial concern was the safety of them because they were really heroically fighting this blaze.

And then it started to sink in.

And I was devastated.

I didn't know what the future was going to hold and how I was going to be able to deal with it.

And it was some dark times the first few weeks.

But, you know, when I, you know, we opened the tent, which I didn't really want to do at first, but, you know, I got encouraged to do it, and I did it.

I'm really glad we did it.

Having the community come back into this tent that, and, you know, the guests and the customers and employees and, you know, have everyone come back, it really, you know, made me realize that it's, you know, it wasn't about a building, it was about the people, and we still have that, and that's the important part.

So we can rebuild what we had, and we really have it here.

Not the same building, but it's, you know, the same feel, the same community.

- That seemed like a situation where state government moved pretty quickly to make it possible for you to open the tent here.

Do you see it that way?

- Yeah.

I mean, I've always relied throughout my life on getting help from people.

And at that time I got a lot of help from a lot of people, you know, from the town to the state to, you know, just picking up the phone to getting the tent and getting things that we need.

People were very responsive.

You know, sometimes it takes, you know, you pick up the phone, you call someone, you might get a call back or an email back the next week, but everyone was really helpful and responsive, you know, up and down the board.

It always will be remembered and appreciated.

- Construction is ongoing at your original site, and you plan to reopen there in fall of this year, 2026.

Is that right?

- Yeah, hopefully that'll be done in the fall.

We're trying to do as good of a job as we can as quick as we can.

So it's, yeah.

- Did you ever think about not rebuilding at your original location?

- Never.

I knew I had to build it back.

You know, never a doubt in my mind that I was going to build that back.

- It was reported after the fire that it was accidental in cause and not related to cooking.

What is known now about the cause of the fire?

- It's still unknown.

A lot of the fire was centered around the electric panels, so it's, you know, there's assumptions that, you know, it had something to do with the electric panels, but there's no certainty.

- Your customers have been happy to follow your restaurant across Succotash Road to your temporary location here.

What is the timeline for reopening at your regular location?

- We're hoping the fall.

I want it to get done quickly, of course, but I also want it to be done really well.

And so that's the timeline is the fall.

- Perry, when you were a kid, you were a two-time All-State wrestler.

Were the lessons about wrestling that have helped you in your business career?

- Absolutely, yeah.

I was just talking about this with another wrestler over the weekend.

You know, it really instilled the value of hard work and that it pays off.

And, you know, I think I was able to, you know, do well at wrestling because of pulling on the bull rig as a kid.

I had that advantage of, I was, you know, a little stronger, maybe a little shorter than the others too.

- Build the upper body strength.

- Yeah, yeah.

- What advice would, based on your experience, what advice would you give to someone who's gone through a difficult setback?

- Well, you know, hopefully I can get through this one and really have some great advice for that, but I, you know, just keep grinding.

I mean, that's really, I'll never forget wrestling coach telling me that in high school, James Barberio, going uphill, running up hills, and he's like, "Just keep grinding, just keep grinding."

And that is, you know, just keep moving in the right direction and, you know, wake up in the morning and, you know, put a day and a half's work in and, you know, try and do the right thing.

And, yeah, make, you know, it's really, this is something I think about a lot.

It's like, you know, it's not like one decision.

It's like you have to string together a series, a large number of good decisions, and, of course, you make the wrong decisions at times, but, you know, if you string together a number, a large enough number, of those good decisions, you know, you wind up in a good spot.

And then when you, you know, have a setback like this, you know, it's kind of like starting from scratch, and it is discouraging, but there's, you know, I try and keep in mind that, you know, it's the journey, you know, that you're supposed to enjoy, and it's hard to have that mindset, but I try to remind myself of that.

- Tell us a little bit about the process of farming oysters from start to finish.

How does that work?

- The oysters in the wild spawn when the water temperature warms up to around 68 degrees, they put their male and female gametes, their egg and sperm, in the water, and fertilization happens when those male and female gamete randomly collide with each other to create a fertilized larvae.

Now that fertilized larvae floats around in the water for about 22 days.

It's a soft bodied organism.

First day it's a single-celled organism, and after just 24 hours, it's really this involved organism called the trochophore larvae, and it can swim at this point.

It can't, like, swim against the current, but it suspends itself in the water, looking for a substrate to attach onto, like a rock or a shell.

After 22 days, it glues itself onto that rock or a shell or a bottom of a boat and stays there for the rest of its life until it's preyed upon, dies of a disease, or harvested.

Now as a farmer, we don't want to pluck oysters off rocks, we just want to grow them.

So we get our seed from the hatchery.

In the hatchery, they take brood stock, parent stock oysters, and they select for the fastest growers, nicest cup, maybe some oysters that survive the disease event.

And you gradually raise the temperature of the water up and get them to spawn.

And once one spawns, they all start spawning.

A female oyster puts eight million egg in the water, a male oyster puts enough milk in the water to fertilize that of seven female oysters.

So you have massive numbers of larvae being produced, millions and millions, hundreds of millions in a spawn.

And the most difficult part is growing the algae to feed that oyster larvae.

Oysters at that larvae stage, they really can only feed on the right size and the right type of algae.

So the hatchery manager has to create, make like a cocktail or baby formula of different types of algae, different types of algae, different species, have different amounts of fats, carbohydrates, proteins.

So depending on the stage of the larvae, that will, you know, that's how the hatchery manager will, you know, concoct the formula for the larvae.

The oysters then want to attach onto a substrate, and we don't want to sell oysters attached to rocks.

So in the hatchery, they crush up clamshell, fine like sand, present it to that larvae.

The larvae lands on that crushed-up shell, undergoes metamorphosis, taking on that hard-shelled creature form.

And then you wind up with this seed that looks like sand.

That sand goes in a nursery system called upweller.

And the upweller pushes water by that juvenile oyster at an increased rate, boosting the growth from that one-millimeter stage to about 15 millimeters, about the size of a dime, at which point we bring them out to the farm and put them in these sturdy plastic mesh bags, constant maintenance separating different size classes is a constant process.

Animal husbandry, cleaning the fouling organisms off to increase survival and thinning out the densities.

Takes about two, sometimes three years to get them to market size.

- Wow.

And how many oysters have you harvested in your career?

Would it be millions?

- Yeah, when we first started growing, we were selling about a million market-sized animals a year from our farm.

Then we started getting into selling oyster seed.

So now we're selling maybe, you know, five or six million oyster seed to other farmers but producing around six or 700,000 oysters that we mostly use in our restaurant.

We used to ship all over the country, but now it's mainly used in our restaurants.

- Yeah.

Perry, you've probably heard the old expression that people should only eat oysters in months that include an R, like January or February.

That kind of went out the window with the rise of farmed oysters.

What do you say about the taste and quality of farm versus wild oysters?

- Well, there really is very hard to distinguish a difference in the taste, but the difference in the appearance will be that the shell might be less perfect or symmetrical than a farmed oysters if they're from the wild.

Really, what the term's in oysters taste is, on land we talk about grapes and terroir.

The oysters have merroir.

Depending on where they're grown and how they're grown impacts flavor and appearance.

Mostly the location.

And on the East Coast, they're all the same species, Crassostrea virginica.

On the West Coast, they have five different species that they're growing.

Because everything's been introduced via the port of San Francisco, we're not allowed to grow anything but our native species of oysters here.

The months with R goes back to the Roman times before there was adequate refrigeration.

We didn't want to eat oysters, you know, that were not refrigerated.

Now with mechanical refrigeration, we can harvest and eat oysters all year round.

And, you know, some states still have laws that you can't harvest them in the summer because that's when they're spawning.

- As you said earlier, the number of oyster farms in Rhode Island has grown significantly from the time when you started farming oysters in 2002.

What has that meant for Rhode Island's economy?

- Well, the industry's grown, and, you know, a lot of the industries around it have really benefited, such as, for example, some companies that sell fishing equipment.

They, you know, they used to primarily, you know, only sell fishing equipment, and oyster farmers started going there to buy, you know, whether it's gloves and line and, you know, clips.

And now oyster farmers can go to these, you know, stores that sold gear for commercial fishermen and get oyster bags and oyster gear.

And a lot of them have switched over, and their primary businesses become, you know, selling oyster gear.

But really it's, you know, from an economic standpoint, it's hard for me to quantify.

But, you know, we were just talking about how we love to go to restaurants in New York, you know?

And it's so much fun to see a Rhode Island oyster in one of the greatest cities in the world and know that they're fresh and relatively local, being in New York.

But, you know, you can also go anywhere, and people always love to send me pictures of Matunuck oysters when they're out dining in somewhere else around the country.

And so I think, you know, just that putting Rhode Island on the map and people all over the country reading Rhode Island oysters, whether it's, you know, Moonstones or East Beaches or what have you, or Matunucks.

You know, there's, you know, you can see these all over the world, or at least all over the country, and I think that's good for Rhode Island.

- Yeah.

You opened a second restaurant, Matunuck Atelier, in Wakefield.

For a while there was talk that you might open a restaurant in Providence.

Is that something that you're still considering?

- Yeah, other locations are certainly something that I've always considered, not because I'm eager to open up places everywhere, just 'cause I want to know when the right thing comes up that I did my homework.

And, you know, there's some great places in Providence that I've thought about doing.

And, you know, the building that I bought in Wakefield, the idea was to do like a seafood-centric Eataly concept.

So you have a market and a restaurant.

And so we just established a restaurant so far.

And, you know, the idea would be that, you know, you walk into this space and you feel like you've been kind of transported to a restaurant in, say, New York or, you know, with a totally different menu than here, even though it is seafood-forward.

You know, that is the idea behind that.

But other locations are certainly something I think about and look at opportunities.

But right now, I got to build back my mothership over there and get the Matunuck Oyster Bar back up and running.

That's my primary focus.

- First things first.

- Right.

- Promoting education about oysters has always been important to you.

Why has that always been a big issue for you?

- Well, at first it was really presented itself as an opportunity.

You know, there was, you know, a call for proposals, requests for proposals, and I had this idea to teach people about aquaculture at the same time, starting a one-acre model farm that can be toured by people that's close to the shore.

And so I, you know, used that opportunity to start the farm and to teach people about it.

And I realized that, you know, teaching people about the ecosystem services that shellfish farming provides really does get people excited about eating oysters, you know, these days with information and, you know, of how damaging some foods can be to produce and to consume, you know?

And having this product that really, the oysters that really benefit the environment and, you know, people's health, it really is something that's, you know, easy to get behind and easy to promote, so, and is obviously self-serving as well, so.

- People love being able to get great seafood like you serve here, but it seems like the ocean is often an afterthought for many people.

Do you see a disconnect there?

- I think the ocean's an afterthought.

It's easy, you know, for people to have a disconnect from the ocean.

I'll, you know, tie it back into one of the tours I was doing with a group of kids from Central High School, and they were, I'll never forget it.

We were walking through the water, and they were very uneasy walking through the water in the waders, which a lot of people are, but I came to realize that many of these children have never been in the ocean.

And that is eye-opening to me, but you can see how that would, you know, easily create a disconnect between, you know, the ocean or, you know, any environment that you're not used to seeing ever.

It's hard to really understand and appreciate it.

So, you know, yeah, bringing people into that environment is important.

- What kind of changes have you seen in the local environment from the time when you started farming oysters?

- Well, you know, when I started farming oysters, you know, there was a lot of support for the small farmer and for the growth of the industry.

As the industry's grown, you know, you see more resistance, which is natural, you know, with any industry, I think.

It really, you know, we have double-digit percentage wise growth for well over a decade in the amount of oysters being harvested in Rhode Island.

And so that's, you know, plateaued.

- But what about the natural environment?

Has it changed for the better or the worse or stayed the same since you started?

- Well, what, you know, what I've seen the changes is the abundance of species, the different species has changed, what's abundant and what's not.

For example, black sea bass, you know?

You know, when I was, you know, a kid commercial fishing, you know, there were not nearly as many.

Now they're really abundant.

However, you know, you don't see them on menus as much.

They get shipped out.

So the- - Fewer lobsters?

- You know, lobsters, we've been able to get, but of course the price fluctuates.

So I've only done a few commercial lobster fishing boats out of Point Judith trips.

But so I haven't done that enough to really have a read on.

But I think like that, like any species, seems to be, you know, there's good periods and bad periods.

And I think one thing that I noticed on my farm is that there's way less sea stars, starfish, on the farm.

They used to be really abundant, and they're really fishing predators of shellfish.

They wrap their arms around the oysters, and they pry them open, and they kind of spit their stomach into the oyster and digest it and swallow its stomach back up and move on to the next one.

And also mud crabs, these really small crabs that are kind of in and around hundreds of them in each, you know, small locations.

You know, so hundreds of thousands of them out at the farm, and they eat the small oysters, and those have increased in abundance as well.

So, you know, really what I know best is, you know, what we have here in Potter Pond.

And I've kind of always been really more of a salt pond, you know, person in my knowledge, you know, is really, you know, closely associated with the estuaries.

I remember, you know, I was digging shellfish, and all the, you know, I wanted to be like the big guys and go in the Narragansett Bay with the big boats.

And then I got this 24-foot Pro-Line, and I was scuba diving for littlenecks, and I went in the bay, and I went around where the other guys were, and I, you know, popped my head out of the water, and I couldn't find my boat.

And I was like, the current had taken me so far.

When you're dealing with these salt ponds, you don't have current like that and not nearly as much to worry about, but yeah.

- Perry Raso, owner of Matunuck Oyster Bar, thank you so much for sitting down with us.

- It's been a pleasure.

Thank you, Ian.

- Thanks for watching "One on One" with me, Ian Donnis.

You can find all of our past episodes on the YouTube channel for Ocean State Media.

We'll see you next week.

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