cover story

The Cantler's Chronicles

The Crab Shack on the Creek is a Memory-Making Institution

By Megan H. Smith, Assistant Editor

Just before two feet of snow landed with an almost audible thump all across central Maryland, I had plans to take some visiting friends to Jimmy Cantler’s Riverside Inn for some crabs and other Maryland seafood treats. The snow nixed the visit, but as we slowly dug our way out of the drifts, I thought back to all the times I had been to Cantler’s—nearly all of them in warmer weather—and about how much this venerable institution has been a part of my life since I came to Annapolis as a college student in 1987.

My dad had come to visit, and he said he had someplace special he wanted to take me. We drove through the winding back roads that lead to the now-famous restaurant that sits at the edge of Mill Creek, and there, on a table covered with brown paper, with mallets and Old Bay and melted butter, I had my first crab. I can still remember how I loved cracking into those shells, and my dad still remembers it too. “I couldn’t believe how enthusiastic you were,” he told me, when I called to ask if he recalled that day. “I had never seen you eat much more than plain spaghetti for years, and there you were, tearing into those crabs like you’d been doing it all your life.”

I asked him if he also remembered going there with my husband and me, back before we were married. Dad had never liked David much, but that day, they found common ground over a bucket of steamers. “We still don’t have much in common,” Dad said, “but the boy likes good food, I’ll give him that.”

The Best of the Real Maryland

I had a feeling I wasn’t the only person who had a long personal history with Cantler’s, and I wanted to see what other people had to say. I put out the call to friends, family, and acquaintances: tell me your Cantler’s stories. Many people, like me, had their first crabs at Cantler’s. Others told me that Cantler’s is where they always take their guests from out of state. Everyone I talked to spoke of it fondly, but two stories in particular stood out.

My friend Frank Alden, a high school teacher, lives in Baltimore, and, like me, is a transplant from Tennessee. When I asked him if he had any stories to share about Cantler’s, he replied “I have a deep and abiding affection for Cantler’s.”

A few years ago, frank and his wife, Christine, had gone to Italy to visit a mutual friend, Jeaneen McAmis, who had settled in Turin, Italy and married a charming Italian man named Edo. There, Edo wanted to show Frank and Christine a bit of the real Italy, and took them to a small, local family pizzeria. The food and the atmosphere captivated Frank. “It was filled with the people of the neighborhood, all in complete comfort and totally at ease. Lots of laughter and greetings. It was a place that let me feel like I had pushed through a veil to get a sense of what it would be like to not be a visitor.” Later, when Edo and Jeaneen came to visit them in Baltimore, Frank knew he would take them to Cantler’s.

“We ordered corn, and cream of crab soup,” Frank said. “A boat came in and unloaded bushels onto the dock. A few minutes later a staff member updated the chalkboard. We got 18 large crabs. When the crabs arrived, Jeaneen, Christine and I started to show Edo the procedures involved in getting to the meat, discussing variants at each point and showing the differences where possible. For example, I'll pick one or two crabs clean into a pile and then eat big 3-finger pinches dipped in Old Bay, where Christine does the more conventional eat-as-you-pick. Edo loved the crab, and the process.

“In our post-dinner discussions, he told us that he felt, as I had in the Turin pizzeria, like he got to experience the best of the real Maryland.

“He did.”

A Messy, Fun Business

Dianne Cowan, an old college friend of mine who now lives in Boston, told me that, “although I picked my share of crabs when I was a student at St. John's, I had never been to or even heard of Cantler's.” It wasn’t until she had moved north and started attending St. John’s homecoming every year that Cantler’s finally popped up on her radar.

“I was invited to join a group of other alumni there. I wasn't able to go, but the place was so highly praised that the following year I decided to have lunch there. I actually enjoy dining alone, so I feasted out on the deck on a dozen crabs and a cold beer and looked out over the water soaking up the autumn sunshine. It was idyllic. Simple, but the moment has a golden haze in my memory.”

Later, she brought her husband-to-be to her now favorite Annapolis hangout. “As we approached the outdoor dining area on another unbelievably perfect autumn afternoon, he saw the crab traps stacked up on the dock and thought that ‘pick crabs’ meant he had to select his own from the traps, or perhaps even catch them himself. I explained that, no, actually, ‘picking’ meant the messy, fussy, fun business of getting the meat out of the cooked critter, and he relaxed considerably. (And the poor boy grew up in Maryland!)”

And now, Dianne says, she likes nothing better than to “rope people into joining me at Cantler’s,” particularly ones who are new to both the restaurant and crab picking.

Crabs and Romance

On a hunch, I decided to ask someone I thought would have the best Cantler’s story of all, Dan Donnelly. He is the General Manager of Cantler’s, and has been for over fifteen years. I sat down with him during a rare quiet moment inside the restaurant, and over a cup of coffee, he told me how he wooed his wife with Cantler’s crabs.

“This would have been the late eighties, maybe ’88,” he said. “I was from Philly and hadn’t been a crab lover—it wasn’t a signature meal there the way it is here—but my girlfriend, Mary was. She’s from St. Michaels. I wanted to take her someplace for great crabs, and when I asked around, everybody told me to go to Cantler’s.”

Like so many of us on our first attempt to get there, Donnelly got lost. “There I was, cussing up a storm. You don’t want to get lost in front of your new girlfriend!” They finally made it, and though they knew they loved the place, and would come back again and again over the years, they didn’t know how important the place would end up becoming in their lives.

“Mary was a bookkeeper in the local restaurant industry, and I was managing a Red Lobster,” he said. “One day, an ad appeared for a bookkeeper at Cantler’s and Mary leapt on it.” By this time, they were married, and both of them became very close with Jimmy and Linda Cantler, the owners and founders of what we know as Cantler’s today. “When Jimmy and Linda decided to spend more time in Florida, they needed someone they knew and trusted to take the helm here. I’ve been here ever since.” He smiled, “This has been my life and it’s been wonderful. My kids have grown up here; they’ve all worked here. It’s a special place.

“You should come!” he told me. “Bring your husband, bring some friends. You’ll have a great time.”

I took him up on his offer (see sidebar, pg, XX), and took my husband and another couple to Cantler’s that Friday night. And as we sat on the heated deck, overlooking the snowy, quiet creek, and clinked our beer cans together, I thought about the people who have passed through here, and all the stories that other people probably tell whenever someone mentions the name Cantler’s.

And right on cue, at the table next to us, the server brought out a huge platter of crabs to a family of four. The two young daughters’ eyes widened as their daddy picked up a leggy crustacean and began showing them how to take it apart. As the squeals and giggles intensified, I knew we were watching yet another Cantler’s story in the making.

Jimmy Cantler’s Riverside Inn is located at 458 Forest Beach Rd., Annapolis. 410.757.1131. Open for lunch and dinner Sun.–Thurs. 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 11 a.m. to midnight. Directions by water: Enter Whitehall Bay; pick up fishing channel marker 320 NW to restaurant. Free docking is available. Reservations are accepted Sat. and Sun. October through April only. www.Cantlers.com

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