Midtown Ocean City MD

Midtown runs roughly from 16th Street to 90th. Philadelphia Avenue hands off to Coastal Highway here. The motels give way to bayside restaurant lots with actual parking. This is where Ocean City's sit-down crab trade settled after the boardwalk era. These rooms are built around the kettle and the paper-covered table, not the stroll-by window. Both anchors sit on the bay side of the highway. Tables face the sunset over the bay.

Blu Crabhouse & Raw Bar holds down 23rd Street with a deck over the water. Its menu carries an all-you-can-eat blue crab line. Higgins Crab House has run its fried-chicken-and-crabs format at 31st Street for decades. It is one of two Higgins rooms on the island. Several of these rooms do not open until late afternoon. Expect a wait on a July Saturday.