In the current form, the company, privately held,[1] was started in 1969[2] as Taylor United by brothers Edwin and Justin Taylor, grandsons of James Y. Waldrip, an early Washingtonian who came to Seattle to work rebuilding after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 before moving south and founding the Olympia Oyster Company in the 1890s.

[3][4][5][6] Waldrip's company farmed the Olympia oyster found only in South Puget Sound.

[7] Justin Taylor, born 1921, the oldest oyster farmer on Puget Sound in the early 2000s, died in 2011.

[8][9][10] Taylor Shellfish harvests more than 2,000,000 pounds (910,000 kg) of clams annually as of the 2010s;[11] 30% of the company's sales were in-shell oysters as of 2005.

[2] Three are in Seattle including Capitol Hill and Pioneer Square,[13] one in Downtown Bellevue beginning late 2017;[14][15] and there are farm stores on Chuckanut Drive in Skagit County,[16][17] and in Shelton.