The Crab Claw opened on Navy Point in 1965 and will close after its 61st season. Owner Tracey Jones-Wass told WBOC that the last day is November 1. That date is a Sunday. The Star Democrat reported that the final season "runs through October," so the two accounts agree once you check a calendar: the season ends with the Halloween weekend.
As of today, September 30, about a month remains. The same weeks carry two of the town's biggest fall events. One is a three-day boat festival at the museum that now owns the restaurant's land. The other is a weekend of street events around Talbot Street that ends with the Jack Russell Races. Picking your last table at the Crab Claw now depends on the calendar as much as the menu.
The lease ran out on schedule
This closing was settled years ago. The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum announced in 2023 that it had acquired the Crab Claw properties, meaning the restaurant building and the parking lot that runs down to the Miles River, and the deal closed later that year. In early 2024 the museum signed a lease letting the restaurant operate through the 2026 season. General manager Wayne Bridges told WBOC that the lease ran three years with a possible extension, and that it is now up.
The building has a long backstory. WBOC reports that Bill and Sylvia Jones started the business as an oyster-shucking house that bought and sold oysters and crabs. They later built dining space upstairs to use the surplus, with screened seating, tables and chairs. The site itself is older still. According to the Star Democrat, a pier stood on Navy Point as early as 1877. In the 1890s the town's steamboat wharf stood there, a one-story building with a cupola. By the 1920s petroleum tanks had taken its place.
Bridges has worked 41 seasons there. He described a room with "no bar stools, no sit-down bar, just big shared tables." That setup affects timing. Shared tables fill differently than two-tops, and a long table for a group takes the most planning.
Counting the days that remain
The restaurant's website lists the hours as open Wednesday through Monday at 11 a.m. and closed Tuesdays. No closing time is given. Starting October 1, that leaves 28 days of service, because the four Tuesdays in October are off. Ten of those days fall on Saturdays and Sundays, and four of those weekend days overlap a scheduled festival.
| Dates | What else is happening in St. Michaels | Crab Claw status |
|---|---|---|
| Fri–Sun, Oct 2–4 | CBMM's 43rd Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival | Open |
| Oct 6, 13, 20, 27 | Closed Tuesdays | |
| Sat–Sun, Oct 10–11 | No major event on the town calendar | Open |
| Fri–Sun, Oct 16–18 | Fall Into St. Michaels, Jack Russell Races on Sunday | Open |
| Sat–Sun, Oct 24–25 | No major event on the town calendar | Open |
| Sat, Oct 31–Sun, Nov 1 | Final weekend | Last day Sunday |
| Sat, Nov 7 | CBMM OysterFest | Closed for good |
The weekends of October 10–11 and October 24–25 are the only Saturdays and Sundays left with no festival on the calendar.
What the festival weekends bring to town
The first overlap starts Friday. CBMM's Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival runs October 2 through 4, with boats, demonstrations, races, workshops and children's activities. Online participant registration has closed, but the museum says participants can still register in person. The festival happens on the campus of the museum that bought the Crab Claw site, so the restaurant's final days run alongside the property owner's own event calendar.
Two weeks later comes the larger downtown weekend. The St. Michaels Business Association lists Fall Into St. Michaels for October 17 and 18, with kickoff events on Friday, October 16:
- Friday, October 16: Yappy Hour at Foxy's and a Petals & Pumpkins class at Corah's Corner.
- Saturday, October 17: pumpkin carving and family activities, Book Hounds storytelling, the Wag-O-Ween costume contest, and Foxy's second annual Beer and Oyster Garden with Lu's at the Marina.
- Sunday, October 18: the 30th Annual Jack Russell Races at St. Michaels Inn, plus pumpkin viewing at St. Luke's Parish Hall.
That makes two weekends with oysters at the center of the town calendar. On October 17 it is the Beer and Oyster Garden at Foxy's. Then, three weeks later and six days after the Crab Claw closes, it is OysterFest at the museum.
The weekday window, and how to book it
The restaurant asks for reservations by phone at 410-745-2900. It cannot take them by email, and parties of 20 or more should ask for Valerie. Groups planning one last long table for an extended family have the fewest options. That planning runs through one named person, and the remaining Saturdays are split among festival weekends and the final weekend.
The weekdays have no competition on the town calendar. Wednesday, Thursday and Monday lunches from 11 a.m. through October 30 are the open dates that sit furthest from the festival schedule. The website does not list a payment policy, so call ahead if that matters to your group.
The family is still working the floor this season. WBOC reports that Jones-Wass's children, Taylor and Brandon, have worked at the restaurant since their teens and are still waiting tables. The Star Democrat notes that both came home after college to see the business through to the end, which makes them fifth-generation restaurateurs.
What closes, and what the family kept
The museum bought the land and the building. Jones-Wass told the Star Democrat she did not sell the name, the recipes or the identity. She has not announced any plans for them, and this post won't guess.
The send-off itself is still unconfirmed. Jones-Wass has said she hopes to organize a boat parade, with customers arriving by water one last time to fill the Miles River harbor. The Star Democrat describes a band on the dock and a large gathering as goals, not scheduled events. If a date is announced, it will likely fall on the October 31 and November 1 weekend, which would make that weekend the busiest of the month. For now, nothing is on a calendar. Her letter to guests gave the spirit she has in mind: "Let's raise a cold beer, crack some hot crabs, and do it Eastern Shore style at The Crab Claw."
Six days later, the museum's turn
On Saturday, November 7, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., CBMM hosts OysterFest. The day includes local oysters and food, two music stages, an oyster-stew competition, boat rides and family activities. It will be the first big oyster gathering on the museum's campus after the Crab Claw closes, held by the museum that now owns the restaurant's land. On November 21, the museum's Holiday Edition of the Eastern Shore Sea Glass & Coastal Arts Festival runs the same hours, with artisans, food, live music and glassblowing demonstrations.
The museum has not said what comes next for the building or the parking lot. When it announced the purchase in April 2023, it said planning for future uses would begin. In its statement on the final season, the museum thanked Jones-Wass and her family and said it is planning the property's long-term future as part of its ongoing campus master plan. No reuse plan or timeline for the site has been announced. So after November 1 the waterfront lot sits in the museum's hands with no stated plan, at the same spot where a pier stood in 1877.
The Navy Point site has changed hands before, and each change has altered how the waterfront works for the town. If you own on the water near the harbor and want to talk through what CBMM's eventual plans for the site could mean for the Miles River side of St. Michaels, Robert Lacaze is following it closely. Let's Connect.
