Midtown Ocean City · the roundup
The all-you-can-eat ledger: what a crab feast costs from 23rd Street to Route 611
Five houses run the all-you-can-eat crab table in and around Ocean City this summer. Only one of them will print the price. Here is the ledger as of August 1.
Five rooms in and around Ocean City still run the all-you-can-eat crab feast this summer. Higgins Crab House holds two of them, at 31st and 128th Streets. Blu Crabhouse steams at 23rd. The Crab Bag holds 130th. Assateague Crab House sits out on Route 611 in Berlin. The format took its modern shape at Phillips Crab House on 21st Street. Phillips fed the island for 66 years and closed for good in December 2021. Of the houses left, only Higgins will print a price. The other three quote the day's number by phone.
The one posted number
As of August 1 the Higgins online menu lists all-you-can-eat steamed crabs at 61.99. Children ten and under eat for 53.99. Every crab special comes with open-kettle fried chicken and french fries. Coleslaw, hush puppies and corn on the cob round it out. Crabs and shrimp runs 68.99. Crabs and ribs is the same money. The combination with Alaskan snow crab legs tops out at 85.99 for all three proteins. Both rooms run the identical menu. Both take reservations through OpenTable. No other house in this roundup takes reservations at all.
Blu Crabhouse prints its all-you-can-eat blue crab line but not the number. It runs a short week too, currently Wednesday through Saturday evenings on its bayside deck. The Crab Bag's 2026 menu marks its all-you-can-eat steamed crabs with corn on the cob as no sharing and subject to availability. The price comes from the carryout line at 410-250-3337. Assateague Crab House does the same with its crab-and-fried-chicken special at 410-641-4330. No sharing there either.
What the reviews actually say
The one house that posts its price carries the lowest ratings. The houses that quote by phone carry the highest. Both Higgins rooms sit at 3.8 on Google. The 31st Street room has roughly 2,300 reviews and 128th has about 1,200. Five-star family-tradition posts run against one-star complaints about peak-night service and crab consistency. The Crab Bag and Blu each hold a 4.2 on several thousand reviews. Assateague leads at 4.4 on about 1,300.
"The all you can eat crabs were so small not even worth picking," one Assateague reviewer wrote in May 2026. Similar size complaints appear under every house in the early months. Blue crabs run light before July on this coast. A fixed-price buffet shows it first. The Crab Bag's recurring complaint is the bill rather than the crabs. Higgins' five-star reviews single out the fried chicken and hush puppies. "The seafood is amazing. Their breading is spot on," one Crab Bag reviewer wrote.
How to work the ledger
The crabs run full in August. One adult at Higgins is 62 dollars all-in, chicken included. At the market-price houses, call in the afternoon. Ask for a number and a size. Price a dozen heavy larges against two buffet seats. If the dozen comes in under, take the dozen. Assateague's 4.4 rests on the summer months. Its size complaints on record come from early season. The feast is worth the money from July through October. Before July, order off the fixed menus instead.
