Crisfield Seafood has been a mainstay for seafood lovers in the D.C. area for almost 80 years and one of the longest-serving restaurants in the region.
The Silver Spring, Maryland, restaurant will close its doors for good on Sunday, Dec. 22.
Stepping through the doorway of the Georgia Avenue restaurant is a step back in time. Three generations of the Landis family have served up their Norfolk-style dishes to generations of devoted customers.
“I'm sad, I'm really hurt. The best crab cakes in town,” one customer said Friday. “We’re going to really miss them. That's why I'm here today, to get all the crab cakes I can for the last time. It will be the last supper.”
We've got the news you need to know to start your day. Sign up for the First & 4Most morning newsletter — delivered to your inbox daily. >Sign up here.
As Landis worked in the kitchen, he said he feels the same way about his customers.
“I love them all. It’s been a fantastic run,” he said. “I grew up here – aunts, uncles, grandmother, you know, grandfather, my father, my mother. This is family and the customers were family too.”
Landis grew up in the restaurant his grandmother, Lillian, started in 1945. He said he loved getting to meet the celebrities and athletes who visited.
“Everybody came in here, they knew each other, you know, slap each other on the back, have some oysters, draft beer,” he said. “Very old-fashioned, in my opinion. Doesn't exist a whole lot anymore.”
While the neighborhood has grown around the one-story red brick building over the decades, not much has changed inside.
“You hate to see the old establishments go if you're a Washington native like me,” said customer Gary “Doc” Gogoio.
The Landis family announced their plans earlier this week.
“I'm the last family member involved. I'm 65 years old. No one else seems to want to do it. The neighborhood's kind of hard now. The building's difficult. It always has been. And the landlords aren't really as cooperative as they once were. They're a different generation as well,” Landis said.
“It's just time. I don't know what else to say except it's time,” he said.
News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.
While the Landis family has run Crisfield since 1945, it actually was opened in 1944 by Captain White, who moved his seafood operation to the Washington marina. He named the restaurant after the small fishing village on the Chesapeake Bay, where he lived.
