For the longest time, Phillips Seafood Restaurant was considered the best upscale seafood restaurant in Ocean City, MD. It’s reputation was built from families passing down the recommendation from generation to generation. Phillips is now no longer known only in Ocean City, MD. Phillips is a restaurant who received their reputation from serving the freshest of seafood. That reputation has allowed them expand along the Mid Atlantic coast into some of the larger cities in the region while continuing to serve very fresh seafood. Not only do they produce the food for their restaurants, but Phillips Seafood Restaurant will also ship food across the country,
Phillips Crab House located at 2004 Philadelphia Road in Ocean City is the original Phillips Restaurant that opened in 1956. This is still the most elegant of the Ocean City branches of this restaurant and the most expensive. They do have some reasonably priced early-bird specials for $9.99 which include smaller versions of their typical serving sizes. The best bargain at this restaurant is probably the $2 off the all you can eat seafood buffet for anyone seated before 5:00. Most seafood offerings at Phillips Crab House will run in the $15-25 range, with lobster dishes running over $30. Overall, as with most of the Phillips Restaurants these days the food is overpriced and you can find better seafood elsewhere in Ocean City.
Phillips also has a location on the boardwalk at the Phillips Beach Plaza Hotel known at Phillips By The Sea. Hmm, sense a theme in the name there? Well, unfortunately the prices are similar to the other location on Philadelphia Road and in reality it is a tourist trap for those that stay in the hotel or ones nearby and recognize the name. Yes, the food is truly Phillips Restaurant food, but as with the Philadelphia location it is just plain overpriced and overrated. The third location is no different, just it is located on the northern edge of Ocean City, MD and is called Phillips Seafood House. The offerings here are very similar to the ones in the other two locations. Similar to Phillips Crab House, this location has the all you can eat seafood buffet.
Honestly, when I go to Ocean City and someone suggests Phillips Restaurant, any of their locations at this point, I am never very excited to dine there. The food as I mentioned is overpriced for what they deliver. If you want to eat at Phillips Restaurant I strongly suggest one of the two locations with the all you can eat buffet and that you arrive for the discounted early bird rate. Honestly though, there are other restaurants with better seafood buffets in Ocean City. It is a shame to see what was once an Ocean City landmark become more of a tourist trap with the increase in their number of restaurants in Ocean City and the expansion into other Mid Atlantic markets. I will remember my earlier days of dining at Phillips Restaurant when it was the only one of the chain in Ocean City, but now it’s just plain nothing special for a regular vacationer to Ocean City.
