Crabby Bill's

900 Pinellas Ave., Tarpon Springs, FL 34689

(727) 934-7484

http://www.crabbybills.com/

Categories: Restaurant

Cuisine: Seafood casual

Features: Children's menu, Happy hour, Kid-friendly

Cost range: 10.01-20.0

Payment options: Credit cards accepted

Alcohol: Full bar

More in this neighborhood: Tarpon Springs

The Loder family started Captain Bill's back in 1975, then sold it and moved on to the unnamed next project. As Matt Loder remembers it, one of his sisters said, "We love eating crabs, we love selling crabs and Dad is pretty crabby." Not sure how patriarch Bill Loder felt about that assessment, but the original Crabby Bill's in Indian Rocks Beach was launched in 1983. The business has grown, with franchises and offshoots (a Tarpon Springs location opened at the beginning of June 2009), but the comfy flagship store is going strong, staffed, as Matt Loder says, by "cousins, in-laws and outlaws," with a menu that lavishes attention on shrimp, crabs and local grouper.

 It's a happy-hour kind of place with live music out on what they call the "loading dock' (that's the deck). Head for fried shrimp and combination platters that bring oysters, shrimp, clams and Pollock together for a little hot oil Jacuzzi.