Stone crab season start Oct. 15: 9 best seafood restaurants and markets for crab legs
It's stone crab season in the Sunshine State.
Stone crabs are legal to harvest in Florida from Oct. 15 to May 1, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They’re unique because only the claws are harvested, and the crabs are returned to the water.
A handful of seafood restaurants and retail markets on the Treasure Coast plan to sell stone crabs or offer them as a special menu option during the season.
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The most common way to prepare stone crabs is to sauté or steam the claws and serve them with butter and lime or a creamy mustard sauce.
Establishments in Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties get their stone crabs from baited traps in the Florida Keys and Cedar Key on the northwest coast — with one exception. Basin Seafood Market & Kitchen in Port Salerno has over 200 traps in the Indian River Lagoon, but doesn’t use them all at once. While other restaurants need at least a couple days, it has stone crabs on the menu the same day season opens.
Here’s where to find stone crabs across the Treasure Coast.
MARTIN COUNTY
Basin Seafood Market & Kitchen
The market and restaurant is an Old Florida experience in a standalone building near Manatee Pocket in the historic fishing village of Port Salerno. The market has been around since the 1980s and became what it is today after it was bought by the late commercial crabber Donald Plant. When current co-owner Chris Oliveira took over in 2020 with another crabber, they added a full-service restaurant and started to offer Indian River Lagoon stone crabs annually.
Address: 4150 S.E. Salerno Road, Stuart
Phone: 772-287-5771
Tausha’s Seafood Market
Tausha Houck originally opened her seafood market in 2009 and moved near Manatee Pocket in the historic fishing village of Port Salerno in 2015. The retail market has fresh seafood delivered daily and put on ice, the restaurant is where customers can enjoy the fresh catch of the day in house or taken home. Her stone crabs come from the Florida Keys because she said they’re better quality.
Address: 4533 S.E. Dixie Highway, Stuart
Phone: 772-288-6500
New England Fish Market & Restaurant
The nautical-themed market and restaurant, which has locations in Jensen Beach and Palm City, has a wide variety of fish and seafood available and provides them to local restaurants. It buys stone crabs from a wholesale supplier that gets them from the Florida Keys and Cedar Key.
Jensen Beach: 1419 N.E. Jensen Beach Blvd., 772-334-7324
Palm City: 3102 S.W. Martin Downs Blvd., 772-872-7355
Adventure Seafood
Capt. Clyde Westall Hensley and Brigid O’Keefe Hensley opened their Jensen Beach seafood market in 2008. Their small, standalone building is on Indian River Drive in Jensen Beach near the Indian River Lagoon. The seafood they buy for their market mainly comes from the U.S., Canada and the Bahamas. They get their stone crab claws from the Keys or north of Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast.
Phone: 772-225-5102
Conchy Joe’s Seafood Restaurant & Bar
The restaurant, which opened at its current location on Indian River Drive in Jensen Beach in 1983, also has a small market. It gets stone crabs from a wholesale supplier that gets them from across the state.
Phone: 772-334-1131
ST. LUCIE COUNTY
Pelican Seafood Company
The seafood market, which opened in 1978, is located on U.S. 1 just west of the South Causeway Bridge. Owner Eric Paul has offered stone crabs every year, and he gets them from a mixture of local crabbers and those in Cedar Key and Tarpon Springs, depending on the harvest each year.
Address: 735 N. U.S. 1, Fort Pierce
Phone: 772-461-2797
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY
Crab E Bills Seafood Market
The seafood market, originally established in 1927, is located on Indian River Drive along the Indian River Lagoon in Sebastian. It has a small eatery where customers go to a window, put in their orders and seat themselves while they wait. It gets stone crabs mostly from the Keys.
Address: 1540 Indian River Drive, Sebastian
Phone: 772-388-2727
Rhonda’s Seafood
The retail market, located among a strip of shop in Royal Palm Pointe in Vero Beach, is run by a fishing family of four generations in the seafood business. It gets most of its stone crabs from the Florida Keys.
Phone: 772-473-6388
Joey and Kimmy’s Seafood Market & Restaurant
Joseph “Joey” Fenyak and Kim “Kimmy” Coveny celebrated the 10-year anniversary of their business in 2021 by changing the former name — Joey’s Seafood Shack — to include her. They get stone crabs from the Florida Keys and the Bahamas and sell them in the market or offer them in the restaurant with their homemade mustard sauce.
Address: 1800 U.S. 1, Vero Beach
Phone: 772-918-8855
Laurie K. Blandford is TCPalm's entertainment reporter and columnist dedicated to finding the best things to do on the Treasure Coast. Follow her on Twitter @TCPalmLaurie and Facebook @TCPalmLaurie. Email her at [email protected]. Sign up for her What To Do in 772 weekly newsletter at profile.tcpalm.com/newsletters/manage.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Stone crab season starts Oct. 15: 9 best seafood restaurants
