Andrew Carmines grew up checking in shrimp deliveries and bussing tables at his parents’ seafood restaurant, a busy dockside haunt on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

“A lot of oysters came through here,” says Carmines, who left the island for college and then a career in hospitality in California before moving back home in 2006 to work at Hudson’s. His return was as much the beginning of a new legacy as it was a continuation of the old; Carmines began looking into creative ways to ensure that, as often as possible, the seafood Hudson’s serves has spent mere hours out of the water, not days. What began with striking deals with shrimpers grew into shedding out soft-shell crabs on-site and forming a side business, Shell Ring Oyster Company, to farm his own oysters—and Carmines is just getting started.