PORT ANGELES — The line to order crab at the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival should move faster this weekend thanks to a $10,000 investment in cooking equipment and added volunteers, organizers said.
CrabFest Executive Director Scott Nagel said new burners were purchased to speed up the often-overflowing line for crab meals in the festival tent near the Port Angeles Red Lion Hotel.
“Our system is so much better now,” Nagel said in a Wednesday interview.
“Now the line will be moving pretty quickly.”
Nine crab cookers were purchased to replace the five cookers that were previously rented or borrowed.
The new burners can boil water in about 10 minutes — half the time it took to heat water for cooking crab in previous years, Nagel said.
Organizers also added staff to serve thousands of crab dinners in the Kitsap Bank Crab Central Pavilion. Meals will be served from noon to 10 p.m. today, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
“Even though there will be a line at key times, we expect it to be a moving line,” Nagel said.
Meal tickets are $26 for the Peninsula Daily News Community Crab Dinner tonight and $29.95 Saturday and Sunday for a meal with a locally-caught whole Dungeness crab served with fresh corn and coleslaw. Half-crab dinners are available for $16.
In addition to the crab meals, the expanded tent features eight restaurant booths, an oyster bar, wine and beer, live music and festival merchandise.
The Crab Central Pavilion now has 17,000 square feet of covered space and can seat up to 1,000, an increase of 150 from last year.
“We now occupy every conceivable inch of the parking lot that we can use,” Nagel said.
“Last year, we had so many people that it really exceeded our capacity. That won’t happen this year.”
Additional seating is available outside the tent and at City Pier, home of the Grab-a-Crab tank derby and 75 festival booths.
The Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival draws between 15,000 and 18,000 guests a year, including capacity crowds on the MV Coho ferry.
Ryan Malane, vice president of marketing for Black Ball Ferry Line, which operates the Coho, said there were just a few seats left for Friday and Sunday sailings as of Thursday afternoon.
“Saturday’s been sold out for a week and half,” Malane said.
“We’re going to have pretty similar numbers to last year.”
The iconic ferry that connects Port Angeles to Victoria seats nearly 1,000 at capacity, Malane said.
Black Ball promotes the CrabFest on Vancouver Island and is a major sponsor.
Nagel said he expected as many as 20,000 to attend this year’s CrabFest.
Organizers ordered 20,000 pounds of fresh crab to ensure that they would not run out. About 16,000 pounds of crab was sold last year.
“I can’t image running out of 20,000 pounds, but who knows?” Nagel said. “Our system is so much better now.”
In addition to crab meals in the pavilion, whole Dungeness crab can be purchased for $20 each at City Pier. The crab to-go comes pre-cooked and cleaned.
For locals, Nagel suggested arriving early or staying late to avoid the peak crowds.
“Avoid the lunch rush from 12:30 to 2, especially on Saturday,” Nagel said in an email. “That’s when the Coho arrives from Victoria with a large crowd.”
Meal tickets can be purchased on the festival website, www.crabfestival.org. Those who print tickets online receive a 10 percent discount on merchandise.
The festival is staffed by 65 area coordinators and about 150 volunteers.
Nagel said the event has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years.
“During the recession between 2008 and 2012, we actually held steady, which is really good,” Nagel said in a telephone interview.
“Once we hit 2013, it has skyrocketed every year.”
Marc Abshire, Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce executive director, said the CrabFest is a shining example of a shoulder season event that stretches the tourist season beyond summer.
“We’ve seen the effect of the tourist season lasting all the way through this first weekend of October,” Abshire said.
The chamber is working to promote other non-summer activities such as a planned winter ice skating rink in downtown Port Angeles and an expanded maritime festival in early June.
Abshire added that the CrabFest has had a “very positive impact on our economy.”
Live Dungeness crab is kept in tanks at High Tide Seafoods in Port Angeles and delivered to the CrabFest on demand, Nagel said.
“They also provide all the equipment for the Crab Derby that’s out on the Pier,” Nagel said of High Tide Seafoods.
“They’re totally instrumental in making this happen.”
Area fishermen know about the festival and “do their best to give us great crab to supply the festival and support the community,” Nagel said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
Crab cook Julian McCabe of Port Angeles displays one of about 20,000 crabs that are destined for consumption during the 2018 Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival in Port Angeles. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
Jaydon Trammell, 9, of Seattle assists with cracking cooked crabs Tuesday in advance of the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
Cooked crabs are put into a tub of ice water Thursday to preserve them before being served to the public. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
