Shaggy’s now is two restaurants on the beach in Biloxi, connected by a boardwalk, the water views and menus of both seafood and a cheeseburger so renowned there’s a boat named for it.
Open just in time for Cruisin’ The Coast is Shaggy’s Crab House, located on the west side of the now sprawling dining and entertainment complex from 1763 to 1775 Beach Blvd..
Co-owners Ron Ladner and Rimmer Covington Jr. bought the adjacent restaurant and created much more than a second place to dine along Biloxi’s boardwalk and Restaurant Row.
haggy’s on Beach Boulevard in Biloxi has a huge addition and a second restaurant, Shaggy’s Crab Shack, along with a sweet shop, gift shop and entertainment venues.
JACKSON RANGER
On the left side is the original Shaggy’s Biloxi at Shaggy’s Beach, with open-air dining that makes the most of the waterfront views and breezes.
Next door on the far right facing the water, the new Shaggy’s Crab House is an elevated experience that adds crab boils big enough to share and a menu of martinis, mimosas, margaritas and other tropical drinks that make the most of the setting accentuated by a row of palm trees on the beach. This new restaurant has both outdoor tables and an air-conditioned dining room for those who want more chill than a breeze.
In between, the elevated boardwalk, which parallels the city’s boardwalk along the beach, connects the two restaurants with a sweet shop, a gift shop and a stage in a shipping container.
The idea, said Covington, president and CEO of Shaggy’s, was to create a place where people want to spend more than an hour eating, and instead linger for the day or evening experiencing the food, the beach and outdoor games, the entertainment and the legendary welcome from Shaggy’s staff.
“It creates a destination,” he said.
A boardwalk leads from the original Shaggy’s Biloxi restaurant to the new Shaggy’s Crab House, with a sweet shop, gift shop and a stage along the way.
MARY PEREZ | SUN HERALD
Opportunity realized
“Ron (Ladner) and I have been wanting to purchase this property next door for many years, and we just never had the right opportunity to do it,” Covington said. When the previous owners of Lucy’s restaurant and bar decided to sell, they could no longer wait, he said.
“We needed to do something here that was going to be successful and stick,” he said, and that’s where the idea of a crab house and the boardwalk concept was born.
They looked to see what was missing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast restaurant scene and decided it was crab.
Crab boils are the specialty of the house at the new Shaggy’s Crab House on the beach in Biloxi. This one features crab legs, lobster tails, shrimp and a flight of sauces for seafood dipping.
MARY PEREZ | SUN HERALD
“For a long time, casinos created the crab tourism,” said Adam Gully, director of operations for Shaggy’s, which now has six locations: four on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, one in the Jackson area and one at Pensacola Beach, Florida.
Fewer Coast casinos have buffets and crab legs, Gully said, and one of every two calls they get at Shaggy’s is from someone asking, “Y’all got crab legs?”
They do now, Covington said, and unlike at the casinos, they come with Gulf views and kids are allowed to enjoy the crab legs, too, while most of the casinos are for ages 21 and older.
A seafood salad is one of the choices at the new Shaggy’s Crab House in Biloxi, along with gluten-free and vegetarian options.
MARY PEREZ | SUN HERALD
The best seafood
The crab and seafood for the new restaurant is sourced domestically and internationally, straight from the supplier. Matt Roberts, general manager of Shaggy’s Biloxi, found a company in Alaska that catches the crab and sends it to South Mississippi. Cold-water lobster tails come from Canada. The Gulf shrimp aren’t just local, they’re from Biloxi.
Snow crab, king crab and Dungeness crab all are on the menu, and all three are combined in some of the crab boils, along with lobster tail, potatoes and other sides. Customers can choose their favorites to customize their seafood boil. When in season they’ll have blue crab, crawfish and Gulf shrimp, Covington said.
“We put our heart and soul into this menu,” Gully said. It leads with 10 varieties of crab boils, ranging from $23.99 for a shrimp boil to $279.99 for The Full Royal Treatment, a sharable feast with all three kinds of crab legs, lobster tail, shrimp, sausage and all the fixings.
The seafood boils are shaken with butter sauce, but some people want more for dipping, Gully said. For them, Shaggy’s offers a flight of sauces so they can dip all four varieties — twisted citrus, garlic butter, original Cajun or smoked honey chipotle.
Shaggy’s burger is the number one seller on the menu, which features shrimp from Biloxi and now seafood boils at the new Shaggy’s Crab House.
SHAGGY’S
Something favored, something new
“This menu also features several award-winning signature dishes that were created by Shaggy’s,” Covington said. Among those are lobster corn dogs, corn ribs and Poseidon’s Pearls that give deviled eggs a flavorful twist with bacon jam, crispy shrimp and spicy mayo.
“We have a sneaky suspicion that our Crab House wings are going to be a top seller here,” Gully said. They are tossed with the original Cajun butter, “So even if you don’t like seafood you can get that same crab boil experience with our chicken wings,” he said.
“Our burger is always going to be a Shaggy staple,” Gully said, and they decided to dress them a little different at the Crab House, with sweet bacon jam. “Then we have our surf and turf burger,” he said, “where we take the burger, and we top it with lobster meat and a lobster queso sauce.”
It’s $19.99, and he said, “To be able to serve a lobster dish for under $20, that’s something we’re very proud of.” The lobster roll BLT is priced at $22.99.
The Crab House menu also features she-crab soup, which is not usually found in South Mississippi, salads, platters with Gulf shrimp and Mississippi catfish, along with seafood entrées and island ribs glazed with pineapple-jalapeno barbecue sauce.
Vegetarian and gluten-free options are highlighted on the menu and many of the drinks are available as mocktails and refreshers, without alcohol. Creating a whole new drink menu gave them an opportunity to add fine wines, Covington said, along with a Crab House version of the Bushwacker made with peanut butter cups. For an Instagrammable experience, the Category Five bloody Mary will wow with a pound of crab legs, two lobster tails, skewered shrimp and other ingredients in a drink to share.
Jars of colorful candy, fresh-made cookies and hand-dipped ice cream will draw customers into Shaggy’s Sweet Tooth along the beach and boardwalk at Shaggy’s Biloxi.
MARY PEREZ | SUN HERALD
Creating an experience
The new Shaggy’s has lots of nooks and crannies and places to spread out, so larger music events will spill out into the parking lot, Covington said, while a solo artist playing native son Jimmy Buffett songs or a small group can pop up on the stage that’s tucked inside a shipping container.
The new Shaggy’s Sweet Tooth is nearby, with jars full of favorite candies, fresh-made cookies and more than a dozen varieties of ice cream, including sugar-free and gluten-free, for dips, shakes and sundaes. Next door is a new Shaggy’s gift shop for those who want to take home a logo t-shirt.
Shaggy’s is the kind of place where people feel comfortable in flip-flops or dressed up for date night, he said, where adults and kids can play with the sand games or wander along the boardwalk. An elevator makes it accessible and gives those who usually can’t go to the beach a front row seat for lunch or at sunset.
With the expansion, Shaggy’s now has more than 120 employees at the Biloxi restaurants, where Covington said a focus on customers and a positive work environment and extensive benefits for the staff helps create a memorable experience whether at the original Shaggy’s or the new Shaggy’s Crab House.
Dining and Cooking