Florida Digests Worst Stone Crab Season In Decade

MIAMI BEACH, FL — Florida's worst stone crab season in recent memory closed last week marked by a lower-than-normal catch of the flaky, sweet crustaceans in many parts of the state and higher prices for consumers.

Co-owner Stephen Sawitz of the iconic Joe's Stone Crab in Miami Beach, which recently celebrated its 105th season, said his business felt the pinch all season long.

"What a season it’s been," the affable Sawitz lamented. "We kind of knew ahead of time. We had a strong suspicion before the season started that the red tide, which was primarily on the west coast of Florida ... was pretty strong."

“Overall, it was one of the lower years in the last decade or more," confirmed Michelle Kerr of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, which is part of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

"The red tide bloom that persisted in the southwest did play a big role in the total statewide landings being lower," she told Patch.

Industry Barometer

Joe's is a good barometer of the industry since the restaurant and its related wholesale business has been known to snap up some 25 to 35 percent of all stone crab claws harvested in the state at times.

In Florida, only the oversize claws can be taken, and those claws must be at least 2 3/4 inches long. The rest of the crab is returned to the water where it can generate new claws three to four times, making stone crabs a renewable seafood.

Florida's stone crab season ran from Oct. 15. through May 15.

Generations of Floridians have eagerly anticipated each new season weeks ahead of the official start day.

Joe's reopens on the last Friday before the start of each season. The restaurant starts by serving up the previous season's catch that has been meticulously frozen and stored.

By tradition, the first diners of the season at Joe's are greeted on opening night by a line of tuxedo-clad waiters who escort patrons to their linen-draped tables.

During a regular season, "we typically can catch almost up to 500,000 pounds ourselves — just between our two fisheries for the most part," shared Sawitz. His fisheries are located in Marathon and Everglade City along the Florida Keys.

"We caught a lot less — actually over 100,000 pounds less, which is significant for us," he said of the season that just closed.

Rich Tradition

When Joe's first opened its doors, President William Howard Taft was winding down his term as leader of the then 48 U.S. states and Americans were still warming to the notion that New Mexico and Arizona had joined the republic one year earlier.

Sawitz has been known to joke about the pressure put on him to uphold his family's legacy. But this year the pressure was unrelenting.

"It was day to day. There was no cushion," he said. "There was no 'we have a couple of days supply. Let’s keep going.' It was all hands on deck this year."

Joe's made up for the short supply by purchasing crabs from suppliers in northern parts of the state, where the waters get colder than in South Florida. But exposure to colder waters can sometimes make the meat stick to the crab shell, which is undesirable, he said.

Sawitz also looked to the Bahamas, where stone crabs were plentiful. That brought a different set of concerns.

"We had to pick and choose our supplier, be very careful as to who we bought from, because there are pirates out there," he confided.

In Florida, stone crab fishermen make day trips to harvest their catch and only claws that meet state size requirements can be taken. The claws are brought back to shore for processing.

"Bahamians, unfortunately go out farther because of where they have to go to catch them," Sawitz explained. "Many of them stay out for days at a time. And they cook their crabs on the boat.

"What does that mean? They’re cooking in salt water. They’re not bringing fresh water with them," he said. "How are they chilling them? They chill them in the ocean, or salt water. And that’s not a great chill."

By comparison, Joe's cooks its crabs on land using only fresh water with lots of fresh ice on hand to chill the crabs afterward.

It was difficult to find a supplier that followed a similar process in the Bahamas.

"There are a few, few and far between fisheries that do it the way we do it," he said. "We may get less as a result, but what we get is the best."

Joe's never ran out of stone crabs at its flagship location during the season, but its sister restaurants in Las Vegas, Washington, D.C. and Chicago had to seek other suppliers at times.

None of the contingency plans came cheap. Prices had to be raised at Joe's for the first time in three years on larger sizes of stone crabs.

"We went up $10 from $59.95 to $69.95 like that," Sawitz said. "Of course, the wholesale price went up — not actually $10, but it probably went up $3 or $4, from where it was, so we had to adjust accordingly."

Despite the price hike, demand remained fairly constant for stone crabs at Joe's which was named the most popular restaurant in all of Florida in 2017 by People Food and Zagat.

Fortunately, there was no shortage of the second most popular item on Joe's menu — fried chicken served from free-range birds. The price was held at $6.95 as the most affordably priced dish on the menu, which is a source of pride for the establishment.

"That’s like the guilt," Sawitz quipped. "Our crabs are so high, let’s keep chicken at $6.95 and let’s try to keep a lid on everything else."

Red Tide

It took most of the season before the University of South Florida came up with an explanation as to why the red tide was so bad this season, according to Sawitz.

"What they concluded was that the currents that we depend on to move the red tide usually start in February. They call it an upwell current that takes the red tide and blows it out to sea — way out to sea, away from us," he said. The National Ocean Service describes upwelling as a process in which deep, cold water rises toward the surface of the ocean.

"Last year, that didn’t happen until late spring. The red tide did really have an opportunity to situate itself where it was, grow and grow and grow. And a late upwell just didn’t matter."

Frozen Vs. Fresh

Many Floridians only want to eat fresh crabs, but Sawitz said they shouldn't rush to judgement.

"There’s very little difference in a well-frozen crab than in a fresh crab. I’m being completely honest about that," he insisted.

"If you take a stone crab claw and cook, and then freeze almost immediately after it’s been cooked and chilled, the quality will be almost insurmountable and it would be practically perfect compared to a fresh crab that’s two days, or three days old," Sawitz insisted. "A crab can last fresh probably five to six days old."

Some establishments wait several days before freezing their crabs.

"They’ve got old crabs that they froze," Sawitz said.

"Now if you get those crabs and they are a half-day old and you freeze them, they were fresh, fresh frozen," he explained. " I mean they are really fresh."

Watch below as Joe's stone crabs are harvested:

Joe's attention to detail is one of the reasons it is a favorite stop for celebrities like the Rolling Stones, Tom Cruise, Elton John, Bill Murray, Matt Damon and John Travolta. Barbra Streisand still gets deliveries to her LA home and featured Joe's in her 2017 Netflix concert video.

The restaurant was started by Sawitz ' great-grandfather, Joe Weis, and his wife Jenny. Joe was looking for a place to escape the cold weather and wanted to move somewhere he could breathe easier with his asthma.

"Al Capone ate here and at the same time, J. Edgar Hoover," Sawitz said in a prior interview. Both men were regulars, even showing up at the same time on at least one occasion. "My grandfather did embellish a little but, but I think it's probably true."

New Crab On Menu

With the difficult season behind him, Sawitz is now turning his attention to a new crab that he plans to introduce.

Found in the North Sea, the crab will be called the Royal Crab for American consumption. In the United Kingdom, they are called simply brown crabs which look similar to stone crabs but have a different taste.

"The British Royal Crab will help us navigate through the summer months and then hopefully next year will be a better stone crab season," Sawitz said.

But the difficult year has had it's silver lining too.

"We know that we can survive.," Sawitz declared. "We know that it should only get better."