From the coast to Nob Hill: New oyster and raw bar to open this month

“Something raw is coming to Nob Hill.”

That was the caption of a social media post from Lure Raw Bar announcing a new oyster and raw bar coming to Albuquerque — the city’s first, according to the May 17 Facebook post.

The restaurant will serve fresh, flown-in seafood, including East Coast oysters, clams on the half shell, prepared mussels chilled with gribiche sauce, crab claws, chilled lobster tails, linguini pasta and smashed burgers.

“Every good oyster bar has a burger for that one friend that just doesn’t want to eat oysters,” said Seth Beecher, co-owner of Lure.

Beecher said the seafood spot, located at 3421 Central NE, is expected to open June 19.

Owners Seth and Jessica Beecher — a married couple and both Albuquerque natives — are the same owners behind Nob Hill staples Central Bodega, Wine & Dine and The Parlor Room. The Beechers are also the founders of Re/Max Select brokerage, and Jessica Beecher is a winemaker and the owner of Mission Winery.

The two met through Ambrosia Cafe & Wine Bar, a former Old Town restaurant Seth Beecher opened in 2000. Seth Beecher started cooking at a young age and is the executive chef for all their restaurants, including Lure, which Jessica Beecher started conceptualizing last fall.

“We love going to raw bars in Boston or San Francisco. It’s a total vibe and experience that you can’t get in Albuquerque or New Mexico,” Seth Beecher said.

Seafood has naturally become a common offering throughout the Beechers’ restaurants because of Seth Beecher’s love of cooking with shellfish. With Lure, the couple aims to create a lively, community-oriented and shotgun-style oyster bar with zinc bar tops — a staple of high-end bars and seafood eateries — and fresh-off-the-ice seafood that is either alive or was alive minutes before serving.

“I’m very excited about it because I’m pretty passionate about oysters and seafood,” Seth Beecher said.

The Facebook post announcing the tide-to-table venture elicited both excitement and questions, he added. The most common question was: How do you get a fresh oyster in the desert?

“Well, it’s 2025,” Seth Beecher said, explaining, “These farmers, when we put in an order, will go out and literally harvest oysters for us, box them up and ship them to us overnight. So from out of the bay to the counter at Lure, you’re talking less than 24 hours.”

He said technology and logistics have come a long way since his time as a cook in the ‘90s, allowing Lure to fly in high-quality Pacific and Atlantic oysters from places like Oregon, Washington, California, Virginia, New York and Massachusetts.

Lure is partnering with four oyster farmers to source its oysters. Seth Beecher noted that all of Lure’s oysters will be sustainably farmed. This means that farmers hand-harvest oysters of a certain size and place them in an oyster rack or bag in the water, versus pulling all the oysters off the seabed by dredging or plowing them via boat.

Seth Beecher said the reason this is important is that oysters filter water. One adult oyster filters up to 50 gallons of water per day, he said, helping to remove pollutants and contribute to the health of the ecosystems around them.

“Oysters are probably one of the most important things to keep water clean,” he said. “We love oysters, and we think that Albuquerque deserves to have a great place to get nicely sourced ones.”

The couple is still determining Lure Raw Bar’s hours. The roughly 500-square-foot space will feature bar and table seating that can host about 30 people. About a month after opening, they also plan to open an outdoor patio space that can seat 20. The restaurant won’t be taking reservations but will have a place to sign up for a waitlist.

Jessica Beecher said she hopes Lure is “wildly successful” and offers Albuquerque a big city experience they can’t get elsewhere in town.

“I hope that we offer a great new location for people to come and enjoy seafood and know that it’s a possibility,” she said.