Bethesda Crab House

I'm in the area for a conference this week and a couple of friends from work and I wanted to do the Maryland crab thing. This was rated one of the best crab houses in the area in an article and it was not far from our hotel, so we went here.This place is not fancy, even remotely. But it is not supposed to be fancy. It was white paper on the table and each diner gets a wood mallet to get to your blue crab. We wanted the crab experience, so we got the all-you-can-eat blue crab. It comes with all you can eat cole slaw and corn on the cob too.The crabs are served on a tray covered in a sea salt heavy seasoning that is quite good, though it makes you thirsty. The corn on the cob was great. The cole slaw was really good. One of my friends thought it was the best he'd ever had. While I would not go that far, it was very good. The crab is absolutely delicious, though you need to work for it. But that is part of the deal.The server gave us a super cool demonstration of how to use the mallet and plastic knife to get to the crab. You are eating the claw meat and the main body. The legs would not be worth the work. We all got the claw part down well and we all needed another demonstration of getting to the body meat, which the guy was totally willing to do.We got our money's worth and could not go the entire two hours you have to eat all you can eat. The young woman in our group did better than either guy did. But it was easily worth the price we paid.This is not fancy. It is not supposed to be fancy. It is messy as all get out, which is fine. We all smelled like crab and salt. I could not wait to get back to the hotel and take off those clothes and wash up. But you know what? We had a great time doing something we can't really do where we live in Southern California. There were locals here who were much more adept at the process. But this was really fun and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

The crabs that I bought from Bethesda Crab House were excellent. I ordered king crab clusters, They were bagged and seasoned just how I like them with not not too much seasoning the staff provided plenty of butter sauce as well. I give them a five stars if you're looking for authentic Maryland crab leg clusters you should try this location . The ambience is lackluster (as most crab-shacks), but they have seating and other goodies inside. The service is absolutely worth the time and money as they are a bit pricey in comparison to other crab-shacks in the metropolitan area. I will definitely have crabs delivered from this location again. Thanks Bethesda Crab House!

The last time I visited this spot was at least 20 years ago. I was a little hesitant about visiting because I stick to crab spots I go to. The owner Jim welcomed us right on in. The waitress told us we could sit anywhere we liked. We ordered the crayfish, steamed shrimp and a dozen of the large crabs. Everything was absolutely tasty! So good we ordered another half dozen of the large when they had them delivered. The crab were seasoned nice. They have beer and wine but didn't see a full bar. In the summertime you can enjoy crabs outside. I'll definitely be back!

When I first came to Bethesda, I was worried that they wouldn't have a good crab joint since many parts of this city's culture is very DC (as opposed to Baltimore/maryland) in many ways. But I was pleasantly surprised after trying this place! Soo many great things to say. Legit delicious blue crabs and the owner is awesome and very friendly. Great hours too, open until 9 pm and 10 pm in the summer. Nice and warm with all the goodies, old bay, vinegar, warm butter. Hit the spot.

This place is a classic and must stop for any seafood lover. The crabs are top notch. The oysters are delicious. The hush puppies are the tits.

So we didn't really know what to order and the person serving us wasn't super helpful. We went with a half order of medium crabs and some peel and eat shrimp for the table. The crabs come out whole with an abundance of salty seasoning on the outside and some individual containers of melted butter. Getting the hang of opening the crabs took some time and we ended up with crushed shells flying across the table and some crunchy bits in the mouthfuls of crab meat. It was difficult getting the crab meat out and not having it cracked and cleaned wasn't for me. I was also disappointed that the shrimp hadn't been deveined.

I ate here with 20 people and we all had crab cakes no one ventured into blue crabs but many people enjoyed themm. I recommend d this restaurant Chesapeake seafood but ambience is like a tailgate party parking is touAll the bestGil j

Crabs were big, fresh and sweet. Service was spectacular. Will def be back next season.

Crabs are definitely a must-have when it comes to visiting Maryland. Our go-to spot as a little far so we decided to try Bethesda Crab House. It's a small little spot, with indoors & outdoors seating. I liked that we were able to call ahead of time and "reserve" large or whatever size crabs you wanted (they ran out of jumbo early on). Honestly, you can't go wrong with steaming crabs with old bay. The only thing about this place that bothered me was the cleanliness. I understand that crab houses/seafood places are not going to be your pristine, tip-top shape restaurants but when there are flies everywhere and people just throwing their "garbage" from eating onto the floor (outdoors), it definitely leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Like I mentioned, I really enjoy eating crabs so I tried not to let the environment get to me. I also overheard that there is was actually one of the first few crab houses in Maryland! Overall-- crab was good!

The crabs were amazing, I'm from south Florida and this was my first time trying Maryland style crabs and the experience was lovely. The service was also excellent, very friendly and they were greeting multiple customers by name. I highly recommend this place!