It’s OK to wear a bib — no matter what age you are — and get your hands a little dirty at Shell Shack.
The restaurant is known for its customizable seafood boils and variety of crab, offering the popular Dungeness and King crab along with Bairdi crab from the Bering Sea and Opilio crab from the North Pacific.
The first Shell Shack opened on McKinney Avenue in Uptown in 2013. Five years later, the resturant relocated to Henderson Avenue.
The company still considers the Henderson store the “first” in Dallas, even though it moved.
Now, Shell Shack has six locations in North Texas.
One of the bestsellers at all Shell Shack locations is called the VIP. The VIP includes two snow crab clusters, one pound of boiled shrimp, corn, three potatoes and three sausages. A personal favorite of Michael Colatarci, the director of marketing at Shell Shack, is the MVP, a combo boil that he created. The MVP includes one cluster of snow crab, 1 ⁄ 2 pound of boiled shrimp, corn, three potatoes and three sausages.
Shell Shack also offers daily specials including $9 shrimp baskets, crawfish, catfish and boiled shrimp specials. Customers can enjoy discounted cocktails at Shacky Hour 3-7 p.m. Monday-Friday.
Photography by Kathy Tran
Shell Shack offers catering, private events inside of the restaurant and Truck & Trailer rentals. Truck & Trailer catering includes a trailer with a deck of oil pots that are used to cook the seafood boils. The trailers are also used for catering. Customers can enjoy food from the Truck & Trailer Saturdays at Oak Highlands Brewery.
Colatarci encourages customers to come inside, ask about local residency discounts and enjoy the ambience.
“I think that the experience of cracking the crab legs, eating the crawfish and making a mess at the table is what makes Shell Shack so special,” Colatarci says. “It’s the atmosphere. You know, we want you to get messy.”
Shell Shack, 2326 N. Henderson Ave., shellshack.com 844.588.2722
