Hood Canal Seafood

My family and I went out to their beach to collect oysters during one of their days when you can pick your own oysters.
We were able to enjoy a day at the beach and we came away with two dozen oysters in the shell (sure we paid for each of them but it was still fun).
The owners were very gracious about throwing in free ice and they allowed us to use their hose to clean the sand and grit off of the shells. They were friendly and they did their best to help us understand how to care for and cook/​eat the oysters.
We took the oysters to our camp site and cooked them as suggested over our wood camp fire. They were smoky and delicious. We loved them.
We got our oysters right before they spawned (still great flavor). After the spawning season, we will likely go back. They are terrific cooked over a wood fire in their shells. It just doesn’t get much better than that!

GREAT OYSTERS!!!
Sorry other people had trouble with their orders. These guys are basically farmers — if there’s something wrong with the crop, they have to deal with it. I’m going to cut them some slack here.
I ordered mine to arrive on Mother’s Day and boy, oh boy — what great oysters!!! I am ordering from them again. I deserve a treat! :-)

Simply unacceptable!
We tried ordering our Groupon deal today (May), and were told they could not ship due to being busy until September (limited delivery days) or October (standard delivery). Oh — if we wanted or order sooner than 4 months from now we could get it in July — but would have to pay a surcharge. WTF?
A word of advice to Hood Canal Seafood: if you are incapable of fulfilling the orders generated from even one daily-​deal site PLEASE don’t advertise with 5 (!) additional deal sites until your order backlog is completely cleared out!
What a joke.

Unbelievable. The fresh oysters are UNBELIEVABLE :)
I purchased a Groupon offer from them a while back and finally decided to use it this year. I placed an order a few months ago and upon checking out I was told by the website that due to a large amount of orders during the time I placed the order they have to push out my order a month or so later. I was fine with that so I went ahead and placed the order.
Then I got an email from a customer service rep confirming with me the date of order immediately after the order was placed. It was a very nice gesture from them. They didn’t send me an order confirmation until they confirm my receiving date. How nice is that?
My oysters came in a timely manner! And were they HEAVY. I didn’t expect the oysters to be this big! If these are «small» oysters in their standard than I can’t imagine what «large» means. When I received them a week ago I immediately froze them in the freezer to maintain the freshness. I was a bit worried about eating them raw but when I took them out to be eaten yesterday me and my family were very surprised at how fresh the oysters were and how good they tasted when raw! I even cooked a batch of them since there are too many for my family to consume at once! Cooked oysters are just as good :)
I will definitely order from them again!
Please do not be turned off by the negative Groupon-​related reviews. I do believe Groupon brought more business than Hood Canal expected that they weren’t sure how to handle it. They don’t look like a very large company so it’s a HUGE learning curve for them.
I’m a Groupon customer and I have nothing but good things to say about them. Contrary to what people have been complaining about I received great customer service.
Can’t wait to order again from them in the near future!

Here’s the truth… many groupon company’s do a groupon because they are tiny and trying to build a business. Many times, they are new… brand new. And then they sign a groupon, and get like 1000 – 5000 orders all at once, and realize… this is 6 months of business and customers expect it to be done in a week. A few rise to the challenge, work 120 hour weeks, and make it through. Some favor quality of life and «only» work 70 hour weeks, and customers get lost in the shuffle.
So they crash and burn at emails, ordering, scheduling, run out of product, etc.
Personally, I never use groupons when I first get them as a result. I wait a month or two. Let the business work out the kinks, hire new staff, find better suppliers. Then I use the groupon and they have this extra capacity and are very nice and I get a great product/​service. They are just at the tail end of the curve, and I normally have a great experience.
So, my experience with Hood Canal is the same. I saw they were swamped. So what I did is i picked a date 3 months out, in February, and told them, mail me the oysters (48 of them… and NOT small) anytime in February.
They gave me a date, kept me apprised via emails of intent to ship, shipped, status, and delivery. Perfect supply chain.
Box arrived, 100% were alive, but one had punctured shell so I threw away. All were alive, fresh, and tasty.
It took me an hour to prepare them. But they were outstanding. My family ate them up and just couldn’t be happier with the experience.
And the groupon was a great value.
So…
I would NOT avoid this firm. Use them. Realize that they were unprepared and overwhelmed with the initial groupon rush, and probably didn’t handle it as well as some.
But don’t hold that against them.
TIP: Order ONLINE… don’t call or email. I’ve found that companies when they are overwhelmed lose track and forget about calls and emails. But online orders, tracked in their system, are rarely forgotten.
Good luck.

HATED THIS PLACE. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING! THEY DO NOT DELIVER YOUR ITEMS NOR DO THEY RESPOND to any of your inquiries or phone calls! I redeemed my oysters back in early September 2011 to receive them by September 11^th. I wrote to them separately, wrote instructions in my order, and called and left a voicemail. NOTHING. Not only did the order never arrive, but no one from the company bothered to respond to me. I received an email Today (1÷12÷12) which is FOUR MONTHS after my order expected date. There was no apology, no acknowledgment of the late order~ Kim just asked when I wanted my shipment delivered. WOW 4 months later? No way. I got a full refund from Groupon back in September when my order never arrived AND I couldn’t’ get a hold of anyone from the company. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!

It’s a shame that a small business’s difficulty handling a huge Groupon backlog has created a chorus of Unilocal haters. This place is more than an online business that ships discounted boxes of oysters to impersonal doorsteps. I experienced Hood Canal Seafood as a beautiful, friendly, chill place where I picked my own oysters. My bf and I had nothing less than a great time.
Full disclosure: we were Groupon customers too; we had each bought picking rights to three dozen large Pacific oysters for $ 9. We came knowing nothing about how to get them or eat them. Upon meeting us, Jane, the owner, provided us with buckets and told us to hurry as the tide was coming in fast. When we returned with our surprisingly heavy load – some oysters absorb rocks into their shells – one of the guys working with Jane showed us how to rinse them down. Then he walked us through the shucking process, opening a couple of the hard ones for us. On my first try the oyster cut me, and Jane ran to her car for a band-​aid.
Since we came unprepared, we bought a shucking knife and oyster-​carrying buckets from Hood Canal; we tossed in a pound of clams, which made excellent linguine alle vongole. Ice was free. Our visit to this place was a fun, unique end to our weekend on the Olympic Peninsula. The oysters lasted an entire week. We couldn’t decide whether we preferred them steamed or raw; both were great.
My only regret was that I had worn hiking boots instead of galoshes. The tide was short, so I waded into shin-​deep water to pick most of my oysters. My feet were soaked during the 1.5 hour drive back to Seattle, and I had a hell of a time scrubbing the sea smell from my boots!
Whatever this place may lack in online customer support, it makes up for if you visit the farm. Remember, it’s on the outskirts of a small town on a sparsely populated peninsula. They don’t have a call center. Online may not be their forte, but it’s unfair to them and potential in-​person customers to weight the Groupon ordering experience so heavily.

I treated myself to a groupon gift certificate on my birthday Oct 7, 2011. I immediately logged into their website and ordered oysters using my groupon code. I immediately followed up with an email to Jane and I also called the business contact number. I understand that they were not available to pick up calls during the day, so I left messages to set up delivery times. I called about 10 times. I have emailed them on numerous occasions. It is now December 28, 2011 and I have not heard one word. This is by far the worst experience I ever had with online businesses. I will never ever order anything again from them! I don’t often write reviews but this one deserves it and WE THE CONSUMER NEED THE TRUTH.
If you want terrible customer service and if you like to give away your hard earned money, then order from Hood Canal Seafood.
NOTE TO THE OWNERS OF HOOD CANAL:
If you can’t do business the right way, don’t do it at all. Don’t lead consumers into thinking they will receive great products and customer satisfaction!
P. S. Since I can’t get my money back from Hood Canal Seafood, I am contacting groupon for a refund and complaining about your business. I am also contacting the BBB. Have a nice day!

Hate to add on to the bad reviews, but I also had a poor experience with Hood Canal Seafood. Perhaps they were unequipped to deal with the influx of business when they offered a special through Groupon, but a little communication could have gone a long way here.
Like many others, I purchased a Groupon for 48 oysters. Per their instructions, I specified my desired delivery date when I placed my order. After a full week of not hearing from anyone to confirm the order, I wrote them an email. No response. Two days later, I wrote again. The email bounced back. The web domain was expired.
Wha? At this point, I was concerned that they were out of business, and contacted Groupon. They were amazingly prompt and nice about the whole thing, and credited my account within 24 hours.
I do see that their website is back up, so I may have caught them at a bad time. Still, I never heard from the company at any point, even after I placed my order through their online system. This is such a shame because they seem like a fantastic little local business, and I wish I could send some business their way. But unfortunately, I can’t possibly recommend their product to anyone.

This company is just badly managed. Also bought one of the groupon tickets and the story is the same as many of you guys; placed an order, never received, was never contacted, replaced it one more time and it happened again.
the worst thing of all, aside the huge inconvenience is the fact that not a single apology was not given to me until now. I believe that we all might have legal grounds to dispute it… i don’t know much about laws, but im about to file a complain with BBB (which they already have a couple of complaints placed)

Ya know what? Do yourself a favor and avoid this company like bird flu. While I had a negative experience with my first try, I was willing to give it another shot when I saw that Jane responded to my review on 9÷7÷11 to offer a free round of oysters. To offer a free shipment was the right thing to do, and it’s what should have been done in July when it became clear that they screwed up my order.
I saw Jane’s response to my review on 9÷20÷11 and promptly wrote her back to tell her I’d take her up on her offer. Guess what? No response. I wrote her again on 10÷12÷11 to make sure she’d received my email. Take another guess? No response.
Good to know I nailed it with a one-​star rating the first time. Clearly it wasn’t the mad influx of orders generated by Groupon that resulted in Hood Canal’s initial ineptitude. The fact is that customer service at Hood Canal just flat-​out sucks, and due to the fact that the owner herself sees to it to provide such top-​notch customer service, Hood Canal does not deserve your business.

Same deal. Did Groupon order on 6÷23÷2011 and they didn’t arrive anywhere near when they estimated. No oysters for 4^th of July. Okay, I said, they are busy I’ll just wait untill next week. NOPE! Didn’t get them until August… GOT ORDERS 5 WEEKS LATER AFTER COMPLAINING.
ZERO communication, NO apology all they did was take my money and waste my time. Oh, and when they did arrive they weren’t the petite size they promised either, they were super extra large. It grossed out my wife, very difficult to eat raw when the oysters are the size of a 10 year old boys fist. Had to grill and bake them instead. I would have been sympathetic if they had communicated with me and just simply apologized for the lateness for the order. But when they sent the monster oysters instead of what they promised (small as a lemon wedge not the whole dang lemon) that was the last straw.
DON’T ORDER FROM Hood Canal Seafood!!! You’re order will arrive late and they won’t be the size they promise.
TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!
Groupon was GREAT in helping me. I think Hood Canal Seafood would have just forgotten my order if I hadn’t complained.

I was actually surprised to read a few of these reviews thinking that it was a total fluke that I had such horrible luck with this company and after reading some of these reviews it seems others have had similar situations.
I actually did what others did-​contacted Jane to find out if it was feasible to serve the oysters at our wedding rehearsal dinner. My husband-​to-​be would be so surprised that I had some of his favorite seafood dishes and so impressed-​I was stoked! So after purchasing my groupon I sent my order in and was guaranteed and reassured that the order would be there for such an important occasion!
However, I received an email the day of the dinner-​where we had 100 people attending and printed menus with the oysters listed that the order would not be arriving as promised. Not something you want to read on your blackberry the day before your wedding of 600+ guests.
Groupon was able to refund me but I feel that the company (Hood Canal Seafood) should take some ownership and responsibility in such horrible customer service and satisfaction. I filed a claim with the better business bureau because my mother-​in-​law now only had to go out to several fresh fish markets to obtain the oysters for the dinner that night but get them prepped and ready in the few hours we had after reading the email from Jane that the ones promised got overlooked in the shipment.
Then after returning from my honeymoon I am still dealing with this situation and trying to get the company and Jane to provide some sort of compensation for the super huge inconvenience and un-​professionalism but also for the money we had to fork out to find all the 150 oysters we needed for the dinner! What a mess and a hassle! I am embarrassed for this company and after this review I will be done wasting my time with this issue.
Coming from a family of business owners I expected such simple customer satisfaction. An apology, reimbursement for the oysters we had to purchase the day of the dinner and some sort of coupon or anything from the company would have been easy for them to do and gone a long way with me-​guess that was too much to ask for…