Every March, Coupeville restaurants step up to the plate, or rather the chowder bowl.

They painstakingly spend hours cleaning, cooking and shelling pounds of mussels in preparation for the annual Penn Cove MusselFest chowder contest.

It’s a labor of love for some business owners, offering a day of community spirit and fun.

It’s important to make it fun or it’s not worth all the work, said June Blouin, owner of Coupeville Coffee and Bistro. “Normally, I try to do it myself or an employee volunteers to help.”

Blouin is preparing for her fourth chowder contest. She’s also the 2012 and 2014 winner.

This year, the coffee shop owner stepped up even more and volunteered to double her offering after another restaurant had to bow out.

Each restaurant prepares 500 samples of chowder for each day. MusselFest sells three different tickets with five tastings per ticket.

The businesses put a lot into participating, said Vickie Chambers, executive director of the Coupeville Historic Waterfront Association.

Blouin will process the 50 pounds of mussels each participant is given by the Coupeville Historic Waterfront Association and Penn Cove Shellfish — twice. She asked that her mussels be delivered earlier in the week and started cooking and processing them Tuesday.

And because she likes her chowder with lots of mussels, Blouin said she will actually purchase additional mussels and estimates she will process an extra 30 pounds or so.

After committing to do twice the chowder, Blouin said she joked about having a mussel party with her friends to have them help her cook and shuck the mussels.

The worst part is processing all the mussels, she said. “Then you don’t want to eat mussels for a whole year.”

Each year, Blouin comes up with a different recipe to enter, but one thing stays consistent. Blouin prefers using non-dairy ingredients.

“I have a lot of my experiments in the back kitchen,” she said. “I try to mix and match.”

Blouin also likes to blend all of the ingredients, creating a broth with large chunks of mussels.

“So they don’t figure out what’s in there,” she said.

Last year, she said she roasted all of her vegetables prior to blending.

And while Blouin plays around and experiments with her chowder each year, chowder participant Brett Rebischke-Smith said once he perfected his recipe, he’s stuck with tradition.

This is Rebischke-Smith, the owner of Brett’s Breads’, third chowder contest.

His chowder is actually a modified potato soup recipe.

“We make good, solid American food,” Rebischke-Smith said. “We threw in all the things we love to eat — bacon, cream, sour cream, butter.”

“It’s definitely not light. It’s amazing.”

The first year, he said he bought 32 pounds of sour cream and ran out.

Rebischke-Smith said MusselFest is something he looks forward to.

“It’s one of our favorite times of the year,” he said. “For us it’s a big family day. I don’t have employees. It’s me and my wife and kids.

“My kids really step up. It makes me proud.”

Two weekends before the event, Rebischke-Smith was starting to prepare for the big weekend, making 1,000 1-ounce dinner rolls. He makes the dough ahead of time and freezes the rolls until they’re ready for baking.

“Everyone who comes, gets to try our bread,” he said.

Rebischke-Smith said his wife is responsible for processing the mussels and this year is coming prepared.

She got pliers because her fingers got cut up last year, he said.

MusselFest marks one of the busiest times of the year for many businesses and kind of an unofficial start to festival season.

“It thaws Coupeville out,” Rebischke-Smith said. “It’s the start of spring.”