A couple eating at a New Jersey restaurant got a surprise in a plate of oysters when they found a one in a million pearl.

Anton and Sheryl Schermer, of Tenafly, New Jersey were eating a nice meal at the Stern & Bow restaurant in the town of Closter when they found a little something extra inside one of their oysters on the half shell, Fox News reported.

Anton says he popped the oyster into his mouth but suddenly felt something odd along with the mollusk. A split second later, he spit out a rare pearl.

Empire Oyster service, the company that supplies the restaurant with its oysters, told Fox News that the pearl is exceedingly rare. In fact, the type of oysters the place serves are generally not the sort that produce pearls at all.

“I’ve shucked hundreds of thousands of oysters in my career and have never found a pearl while shucking,” oyster salesman Kevin Joseph said. “Although rare, I’ve heard of pearls discovered in warm water Gulf oysters but never, ever have I heard of a pearl found in a cold water [Taylor Kumamoto oyster]. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

The pearl is not worth a whole lot, granted, but it is quite a rare occurrence, indeed.

The restaurant said that the Schermers donated the pearl to the restaurant, and it will be put in a frame and hung over the bar.

Another pearl was discovered back in 2015 in a bar at the Grand Central Oyster Bar in New York City.

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

A few years later, yet another woman found a pearl in an oyster in New York City. Kristin Pulaski, 29, found the rare pellet at Maison Premiere, a bar in Williamsburg.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.