How Rodney Clark became Toronto’s King of Oysters: ‘He was Order of Canada-big’

And get by it did. Clark was Toronto’s “King of Oysters,” the Star declared, and his rowdy, eclectic restaurant hummed along just fine. In 2001, Rodney’s Oyster House moved to King Street just west of Spadina, where it still lives today.

Clark, a skilled storyteller and entertainer who came from Summerside, P.E.I. to Toronto chasing a woman who would later become his wife, made oysters big in Toronto and ended up spreading them across the country, his family said. Several oyster shuckers across Canada got their start at Rodney’s.

Clark died on Nov. 6 after a long-term illness, his son, Eamon, said. He was 75.

“He was the original oyster man of Toronto,” Eamon said. “It’s just an amazing life that he lived.”

The original Rodney’s, in a basement near Adelaide and Jarvis streets, “was crazy,” said Clark’s daughter Bronwen, who is now a partner at the restaurant. It was a blend of Bay Street bankers and Hells Angels bikers, prostitutes and people dancing on the bar, she said.

Once, on New Year’s Eve, a group of Russians came to the restaurant. They snuck lobsters out of the tank and placed them in the toilets. No one noticed until a customer emerged from the washroom, screaming.

“Rodney used to say,” Bronwen chuckled, “the oyster doesn’t judge.”

The restaurant lost some of its wilder energy when it moved to King Street, Bronwen said, but Clark’s legacy grew. Oyster shuckers who originated at Rodney’s now run restaurants in Hamilton, Niagara, Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary, according to Bronwen.

“These guys are basically spreading that Rodney Clark gospel throughout Canada,” said David McMillan, the co-founder of Joe Beef in Montreal who was inspired by Rodney’s. “He was Order of Canada-big.”

And his impact spread beyond Canada; he once flew with 500 oysters and 100 lobsters to an Italian vineyard for a client, Eamon said. The client sent a Ferrari to pick him up.

Clark brought a sophistication and specificity to oysters. He knew how to serve them and who was growing them, down to the men and women who fished them in P.E.I., and he told their stories to the people who ate at his restaurant, said Eamon, who two months ago opened his own Toronto oyster bar, Seahorse.

It was Clark’s first wife, Suzanne, who brought him to Toronto. She was on holiday in P.E.I. when she went into an antique shop owned by Clark’s mother. Clark happened to be working that day. Later, Clark visited Suzanne in Toronto and ended up staying.

Originally a graphic artist, Clark was working odd jobs in the city when his father, a businessman, sent oysters on the back of a potato truck to Toronto, Bronwen said. He recruited Clark to deliver them to clients that included John Candy.

Clark, a hockey goalie, filled a small pool with ice shavings from a local arena, stuck it in the back of his truck and put the boxes of oysters on top. Once delivered, customers wouldn’t let him leave, Bronwen said; they recruited him to open the oysters at parties.

The business grew and he eventually opened Rodney’s Oyster House.

Clark retired about a decade ago from Rodney’s and moved back to P.E.I. In addition to Suzanne, Bronwen and Eamon, Clark is survived by his wife Jennifer and their two children, Kendra and Beecher.

“He was just a magical person,” Bronwen said. “If you were in front of him and he was telling that story to you, there was nobody else in the world.”

One story Eamon once heard was of Clark setting up a lobster boil at a party and realizing he might not have enough to feed all of the guests. He began, the story goes, throwing live lobsters into the backyard pool. “If anybody would like a lobster tonight,” Clark said, “please bring it to me and I’ll cook it for you.”

Guests began jumping, fully-clothed, into the pool.

“He took a lot of risks,” Eamon said, “if they were calculated or not.”