The Crab Trap — Restaurant in Fernandina Beach

This used to be one of my favorite restaurants in Fernandina, but after eating here for the first time in a couple of years, I will never eat here again. We started with a couple of appetizers, the gator tail and fried calamari. They both had a strange sour taste, which I assume was in the batter, but it masked the taste of the meat quite well. The gator didn't look like, feel like, or taste like gator, so I assume it was not in fact gator. When we were about halfway through the fried calamari, we realized that many of the "calamari" were in fact banana peppers. After confronting our waitress about this, she got very defensive claiming that there are supposed to be banana peppers in the calamari, which is something that should be made clear on the menu, as roughly 40% of the calamari are in fact banana peppers. Our waitress then went to take our concerns to the manager, but our concerns were never addressed after this, so I assumed it would be taken off our check. The food came later, which was decent, however the shrimp were very overcooked and dry (probably frozen). When our check came, the calamari were still on it, so I mentioned this to the waitress as she took the check with cash. The manager came back (mask around her chin) with the change and in one of the meanest, harshest tones I have ever heard from a customer service employee, stated that because we had eaten all of the calamari (we ate half) she could not refund us. We explained that we were very hungry and waiting on our food so we didn't notice until we were halfway through. I also specifically held up a fried banana pepper stem (among other unidentifiable fried foods) that she decided to ignore. She came back with an adjusted check with the calamari removed, however the change from what I had paid was still the amount from the original check. After having this finally sorted out, we left from what had been possibly the worst dining experience of my life. Please do not eat here, the staff will attempt to belittle you and take as much money as they possibly can. We also never recieved one apology for any of the several...

Saturday after church my wife and I were looking for a place to eat. We’re new to the area and so far most every place we’ve eaten have been very good. The Crab Trap is no exception. We arrived at 6 pm and were seated right away. We chose to eat upstairs. The stairs to get up there increased our appetite! Whewwwww! The menu is mostly seafood, because of course it is. So many seafood choices! I had the Fish and Chips and my wife had the crab cake.a very large crab cake! We started with a shrimp appetizer. The shrimp was cooked perfectly! Not to hard and not too soft. The cocktail sauce had the right amount of heat! Delicious! My fish and chips were probably the best I’ve ever had! The real surprise was the coleslaw. It was perfection and my wife and I are coleslaw experts! My meal came with 2 hush puppies. I love that meals here very often have hush puppies as a side. Anyway, they were equally delicious! See the picture of my meal. My wife liked her crab cake. I tried it and it was very good! She couldn’t finish it so we brought it home. We never bring home seafood leftovers! We were too full for dessert so I have no opinion on their desserts. We did have a cocktail. A tequila drink called Pirate something. Sorry I can’t remember the full name. Our server, Elwin,was very friendly and attentive. The entire experience was memorable in all the good ways that matter. The décor is sparse but nice. It has a homey fell about it. The did have a $45 all you can eat snow crab special but I didn’t order that. Wish I did. The bill was reasonable too, $80. We’re definitely coming back here! I give the Crab Trap 4 Chef...

Well, we went here on a family recommendation. They vacationed here and said this was their favorite seafood spot.

Now I will recommend it to you. I could use words like great, delicious, fantastic, exceptional. All is an undersell for the dish we had.

So for reference this review is from the perspective of 2 grown men.

We ordered the Seafood Tower Supreme. Which is 1.5lbs snow crab legs, 12 oysters, 1.5lbs peel and eat shrimp, 3 deviled crab backs 2 lobster tails and we added the optional 1lbs King Crab.

For a reason unbeknownst to me this is in the appetizer portion of the menu, but we made a meal of it.

IT WAS THE BOMB. Do you have a seafood itch you can't scratch? Well, I have a three tiered seafood bonanza that's gonna take care of that. You can get the oysters in a couple ways, the crabs legs were perfectly steamed and easy to crack and extract, the lobster tails and an excellent sear on it, the deviled crab was a favorite of mine with great flavor and plenty of meat mixed in, and the top of the tower laid the shrimp which were an excellent closer as we worked from top to bottom.

As we worked on the scrimp I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to finish, but our server/bar tender JJ gave us the push we needed to get over that last hump. His service was top notch and he kept us good and hydrated with cerveza and we tackled the tower.

It wasn't cheap, mind you. It was however awesome. Really rest time, really great people, really great foot. I will make it a point to return next time I'm in town, but maybe with less of a...