The Underwhelming Amount Of Joe's Crab Shack Locations Remaining

Chain restaurants become popular when they offer a combination of food, atmosphere, and brand identity that's appealing to consumers. But achieving success is only half the battle, as their popularity can wane for reasons both in and out of their control. Joe's Crab Shack, the casual dining chain with a coastal seafood shack vibe, was once riding high with nearly 140 locations. But after years of closures, the chain has shrunk to just 15 restaurants in seven states, as of October 2025.

Joe's Crab Shack first opened in 1991 as a Houston restaurant, and began expanding after it was bought in 1994 by Landry's Restaurant Group, the owner of dozens of upscale and casual dining chains including Morton's The Steakhouse, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., and Saltgrass Steakhouse, one of the U.S. steakhouse chains that use the best quality beef. 

It was sold to JCS Holdings (later Ignite Restaurant Group) in 2006 and continued to grow, reaching its nearly 140-restaurant peak in 2014. But sales began sliding, and by the time Ignite filed for bankruptcy protection in 2017, there were 112 locations. Some 40 more were shuttered a couple of months later during the proceedings, which ended with Landry's buying the chain again. However, restaurants continued to close, declining to 44 by 2021, and dropping from 30 to 20 in 2024, when sales fell 27.5%, according to Technomic (via Nation's Restaurant News).

The main culprits in the ongoing Joe's Crab Shack shutdowns are shrinking sales, restaurant leases expiring, and changes in Landry's strategy, according to The Street. Asked about the recent closures, including of some of its other seafood restaurant brands too, Landry's told Seafood Source "locations, markets, and consumer patterns naturally change."

Joe's Crab Shack's decline comes as other seafood chains have also been under strain, including Red Lobster, one of several restaurant chains that filed for bankruptcy in 2024, Bonefish Grill, and McCormick & Schmick's. Seafood is expensive, so Joe's and the other restaurants' meals can cost more than the competition, leading price-conscious patrons to go elsewhere.

A business decision that didn't pan out also cost Joe's customers the year before then-owner Ignite filed for bankruptcy. It chose 18 locations in 2016 to test eliminating tipping (a practice that actually has a dark history in restaurants). But it called off the experiment after six months when those Joe's saw an up to 10% decline in customers. It turned out people liked having tips as an incentive for good service, and questioned whether the money would actually go to employees via another method. Joe's raised prices as part of the test, and gave workers a higher set salary.

There's been no word from Landy's about any plans to try to put Joe's Crab Shack on better footing. But its actions suggest it may be looking past the brand. In addition to reducing the number of locations to such a low number, Landry's is also repurposing some of them. It flipped a Corpus Christi, Texas, Joe's location into a Landry's Kitchen restaurant, and plans to turn one it closed on the Kemah Boardwalk in Kemah, Texas, into an entrance for a new waterpark.