A Fall dining promotion will feature Maryland seafood on restaurant tables, not only in Maryland, but in Delaware, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources today announced the new partnership and details about the dining promotion.  

Described as a celebration of Maryland seafood, From the Bay, For the Bay, will run from Oct. 2-9, with more than 150 restaurants having already commmitted, and as many as 300 anticipated.

A website launched today.

Each participating restaurant will donate a dollar from every Maryland seafood dinner sold during the week to the Oyster Recovery Partnership, a non-profit organization working to rebuild the Chesapeake Bay’s native oyster population, according to a news release announcing From the Bay, For the Bay.

Stephen Vilnit of the DNR's Fisheries Program helped develop the program and partnership. "My thought has always been that the best way to promote seafood is through the restaurants," Vilnit told me.

Vilnit's background is in wholesale seafood. He worked for 11 years at the Jessup Seafood Market before being recruited by the DNR last Fall.  "Seventy percent of the seafood consumed in this country is in the restaurant business and reaching out to this end of the industry gives us the best opportunity to reach the largest amount of end users."

Vilnit told met that the tally of participating restaurants currently stands at 157. "More are joining every day, he said.