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"Phillips Crab House - 1967" by Paul McGehee. This nostalgic scene from the late 1960's shows Ocean City, Maryland's famous crab house by the light of the setting sun. Lines of hungry people have formed around the block anticipating dinner at one of the beach resort's most popular restaurants. Shirley and Brice Phillips opened their first seafood restaurant back in 1956...a small "crab shack" from which they could sell surplus crabs from the family's seafood processing plant at Hooper's Island. Soon, the little crab shack proved so popular that it evolved into the first Phillips seafood restaurant, known as "Phillips Crab House." Located at 21st Street and Philadelphia Avenue, the English Tudor-style building quickly became a fixture of Ocean City's dining scene. Phillips' succulent crab cakes, crab soup, fresh fish and oyster dishes made it enormously popular amongst visitors and locals alike. The interior of the original "Crab House" was decorated with colorful lights, hand-carved carousel horses and antiques (such as Tiffany-style lampshades) at every twist and turn of the ten dining rooms. Most interesting of all was what your food would be served on: repurposed treadle sewing machine tables with the foot treadle still in place! The original "Phillips Crab House" could seat 1,200 guests...an enormous structure for its day. The restaurant expanded into an even larger building in the 1970's and 80's. Eventually Phillips Seafood opened up several other restaurants on the East Coast, as well as spreading their business overseas. The restaurants are now in their third generation of family ownership, and are one of the greatest success stories of Ocean City...and it all started with a little crab shack! "Phillips Crab House - 1967" is faithfully reproduced as an archival-quality print from McGehee's original color pencil drawing, each hand-signed by the artist. Edition size 500 S/N. Print image size: 6 1/2" x 10". (Final shipping cost on this small print may indeed be less than actually displayed upon purchase, depending upon destination and weight.)
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