02-26-2023 Harford Magazine - Flipbook - Page 20
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BY AMANDA YEAGER Harford Magazine
Richard Anderson is the owner of Richard’s Fish & Crabs in Bel Air. The restaurant recently moved to a larger space just yards from its old location.
PHOTOS BY KENNETH K. LAM
Crustaceans are the ‘bread and butter’
Owner of Richard’s Fish & Crabs in Bel Air got his start by selling crabs out of a truck
Selling fresh crabs started as a side hustle for Richard Anderson. Three decades later, he has two crab houses of his own.
Anderson, the proprietor of Richard’s Fish & Crabs in Bel Air,
was a teacher looking for extra income when he took a job at
Gibby’s Seafood & Gourmet Market in Timonium. When the seafood shop’s owner asked whether Anderson would be interested
in running a roadside crab truck in Harford County during the
summer of 1989, he jumped at the opportunity.
“It was slow at first, a real one-man show,” he recalled. “Then,
after about three years, it took off.”
That truck ended up being Anderson’s entree into the world of
crabs. In 2000, he opened The Seafood Stop, his first brick-andmortar crab house, in Fallston.
Anderson, who quit his teaching job as the seafood business
picked up, launched Richard’s Fish & Crabs six years later, on the
site of a former gas station. The bright yellow carryout at the corner of Route 22 and Schucks Road became something of a local
landmark, with eye-catching signs advertising hot, steamed crabs
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| Spring 2023 | harfordmagazine.com
The shrimp salad, with its deep red spice blend, is a customer favorite at
Richard’s Fish & Crabs.