Food & Drink

Sloppy Crab, an upcoming Detroit seafood spot, hosts preview events Friday and Saturday

September 01, 2021, 8:50 PM

Downtown has two dining bounceback signs this week, a show of confidence in year two of the pandemic eating-out slump.

Sloppy Crab, a newcomer still in the works opposite the RenCen, has eight-hour preview parties Friday and Saturday nights for ticket buyers. Those events follow a soft reopening Thursday night of Townhouse Detroit on lower Woodward, which we also post about today.  

The seafood restaurant at the prime corner of East Jefferson Avenue and Beaubien Street hosts the two-night Labor Day Weekend buffets with DJ and cash bar from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Guests get a glass of champagne as part of the -- brace yourself now -- $125 cost.

Chef Al Moxley, the co-owner, explains the steep ticket fee. "Pricing is largely based on the food," he posts Tuesday on Facebook, describing the fare: "Crab cakes, crab shrimp, seafood scampi, vegetable eggrolls, shrimp potstickers, lamb chops, crab salmon and several other menu selections."
Tickets are at this Eventbrite page.

Moxley and a partner last year opened Sloppy Chops, a steakhouse on West McNichols Road at Littlefield Street on the edge of the Harmony Village neighborhood.

Their new spot, projected to open in October, is a space that was Briggs Sports Bar from 2015-20 and Tom's Oyster Bar before that. It has a rooftop deck with a bar that'll reopen next summer.

"We're trying to compete with Ocean Prime and Joe Muer's," Moxley tells Metro Times. "But we still want a casual environment where people feel comfortable." 

The menu will include a version of seafood boil, lobster crab cakes, fried king crab legs, panko-crusted prawns stuffed with crab and the signature dish -- deep-fried soft-shell crab called a Sloppy Crab.

The website is still a "coming soon" shell, but the year-old Facebook page has nearly 3,300 followers.


The space at Jefferson and Beaubien had been Briggs Sports Bar and, earlier, Tom's Oyster Bar. (Photo: Facebook)



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