Mike and Ardis Knoflicek acquired a taste for raw oysters late in life.

Growing up in rural Nebraska, "Rocky Mountain oysters were as close as we got" to seafood, Mike jokes.

Now, after trying the slimy mollusks for the first time in 2014, the pair of recent retirees partakes in oyster happy hour nearly every two weeks at Kimball House in Decatur, Georgia.

It's the kind of oyster loyalty Kimball House co-owner Bryan Rackley tries to foster by serving new varieties whenever possible. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, the Knofliceks had the opportunity to try some new, rare additions to Kimball House's oyster menu from Alabama's Gulf Coast.

Little did they know of the work that went into bringing those oysters to the bar. They were pulled out of Alabama's Portersville Bay two days earlier as part of an oyster farming system so new to the region that distribution channels outside Alabama barely exist. To bring them to the restaurant, Rackley drove 150 miles each way to Birmingham and back that day.

Why? "Because they're good," he says, and he thinks they deserve a place on the menu just as much as their East and West Coast counterparts.

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