Lady Frances Crabhouse — Restaurant in Maryland

UPDATE: Do Not Buy Crabs-Your attempted use of reverse psychology is not working. People reading this review are not falling for your lies. People do not want their crabs looking like it has fungus on it nor has your business increased from this truthful and honest review. Stop lying to the public. If what you said is indeed true tell your customers that their crabs are no good if they do not have black fungus on them which I'm sure most of them don't. I've been buying crabs from you for years and have not seen this before on my crabs. I challenge you and anyone looking at this review to find five pictures showing a dozen of crabs or more that did not come from you that look like the crabs that you sold to me.

Since you did not want to replace the messed up crabs you sold to me I contacted my bank and they refunded my money. You are out of a dozen of crabs which I have since thrown away, your business account has been debited the $125.00 I paid for the crabs and you lost a loyal customer. You lost all of the way around due to poor customer service and Vince's attitude. You told me to just eat the crabs because you did not want to deal with it... now you can just eat the financial loss.

Original Review: I and my family have been a loyal customers since the late 1990's spending thousands of dollars each year since then. I thought that having been a loyal customer for so many years that I would be treated with respect if I ever had an issue or complaint. But to my surprise, when I had an issue with my order, Lady Frances's employees disrespected and hung up on me. I am fairly confident that upper management does not condone this type of behavior, but you never know so I am awaiting their reply to this review. But let me tell you what happened and show you a photo of the crabs sold to me because this could happen to you!

On June 5, 2025 I drove 81 miles to purchase a dozen of crabs from Lady Frances's and these crabs did not look safe to eat (see attached picture). The next day around 3:35 PM, I called and spoke to Vince, the store manager to calmly and professionally discuss with him that the crabs had a lot of black stuff on the shell that came off when wiped. I did not initially see the black on the shell because seasoning was added after the crabs were cooked to hide the black stuff on the shell. Black dots on the shell are normal, but not the large black stain that we're able to be rubbed off with my hands was present on the shells of my crabs. When I told Vince about this he told me to talk to my brother who had purchased crabs just two days prior claiming that he had no problem with his crabs. This suggestion made by Vince proves that my family are regular and loyal customers. I had purchased crabs the previous week and they were fine. But the problem is that these other purchases were from a different batch and is totally separate from the crabs referenced in this review and cannot be considered. Vince even went as far as to insult me by saying that "I was losing it". I was also told by another employee that the black stuff on the shell means that the crabs are heavy and anyone that knows anything about crabs knows that this is not accurate. Again the black stains on the crab shells could be rubbed off and after doing some research these crabs had a fungus and just like mold on any nonporous surface it could be rubbed off. I paid $125 for a dozen of crabs and all I wanted to do was return the dozen of crabs, get a new dozen, get a store credit or a refund. Any one of these options would have been fine, but Vince was adamant in his decision NOT to make it right.

As a social media marketing and SEO expert I intend to make sure that this review travels far and wide and that it goes to the top of Google and Bing so that other loyal customers will know how I was mistreated and that the same could happen to them. I've always been happy with the service at Lady Frances, but Vince is a liability to the reputation of such a long standing establishment and may need to be given training in...

Let me say my wife went there this weekend. We've been there before when we lived right in east gate townhomes right there so we knew they were good ppl. We got 1/2 bussel of,what he said were 3 dozen mediums, yet I thought they were larges n even a few extra larges in there. My father was a crabber on wye river for yrs n I went with him all the time. I'm used to jumbo monsters. But he passed away few yrs back n I have no boat lol so I have to pay for crabs now lol. I gotta say... GO HERE FOR CRABS!!! U will not be disappointed. I did tell my wife to have him show her a crab so she could feel the weight n tell me how black n dark green the shell was so I knew how fat they were. Light green shells r very light. The darker the fatter n better. Unfortunately he handed my wife a freshly steamed crab lol n she was like its HOT lol! But what she described sounded good. I was lookin forward to 3 dozen medium crabs for $130-135. When she got home n I grabbed the 2 bags I KNEW they were gonna be delicious lol. We have 2 children n I know we've eaten at least a dozon Saturday n Sunday n i swear I think there were extra in there cause we have enough for tonights meal. However I could be wrong it may have been exactly 36 just seems like more. Anyway, I hope these people have their business for many many more years. U will not be disappointed if u go there. Oh n they accept EBT. I'm not saying spend ur food stamps n go broke eating seafood but if frugal n cut coupons n spend ur money wisely, even poor people who do right still deserve to treat themselves. Hope this gets them some well deserved business. If I can work it out I'll be back at end of summer for a couple dozen more. Maybe smaller cause this was just a treat cause we've been struggling for over a year n needed a little treat. N couldn't have asked for...

I came into purchase some soft crabs . I purchased 3 . I asked the guy that bagged up my crabs if they could be cleaned for me . He took my purchase to the back and came back within a few seconds and handed to me . I was as well told by the employee that handled the entire trans action that if I were to come in again that it would have to be cash since the son handles those transactions - it is separate. I called to complain. I will...