When Rick Antosh, 66, met an old friend from high school for lunch at the Grand Central Oyster Bar in New York City earlier this month, he certainly was not expecting it to pay off for him in such a huge way!

After sitting down, Rick ordered his usual $14.75 pan roast, which is a stew-like dish that includes six Blue Point oysters. As soon as he bit into them, however, he felt something hard in his mouth and feared that he might need to see a dentist immediately.

“For a fraction of a second, there was terror,” Rick recalled. “Is it a tooth; is it a filling?”

Luckily for Rick, it was not a tooth. Instead, it was a pea-sized pearl that Eddie Livi, owner of DSL Pearl on West 47th Street, said could be worth thousands of dollars!

“Value is based on luster, clarity and roundness,” Eddie said as he looked at Rick’s pearl. “It is not very round and has a black spot that may or may not be removable. [For] something in this condition, a dealer who really wants it, ballpark, may pay $2,000 to $4,000.”

Given the fact that the restaurant is so renowned, Rick initially took the pearl home with him without saying anything to workers there. However, he eventually got curious as to how often pearls like this one are found, so he called the restaurant to ask. Executive chef Sandy Ingber could not believe his ears when he heard what Rick had to say.

“I’ve been here 28 years,” said Sandy, “This is only the second time I’ve seen this happen. And we sell over 5,000 oysters on the half shell every day.”

Rick has not yet had his pearl appraised, but he certainly plans to go back to dine at the restaurant again!

“I will definitely come back and try to find more pearls,” he said of Grand Central Oyster Bar. “You never know.”