Every October 15th, Florida's stone crab traps go back in the water, and every October 15th for over a decade, Cortez threw a party to mark it. Live music on two stages, a beer tent, a kids' zone, a crowd that used to top 5,000 people packed into the Swordfish Grill parking lot. That party has not happened since 2023. It's been dark for two Novembers running, and as of this writing nobody's announced whether it's coming back this year either. The reason has nothing to do with the crabs.
If you have lived on this island long enough to remember when the Cortez Stone Crab and Music Festival was simply a date you circled, this is worth knowing before you plan your week around it. The season is intact. The festival is not. And the difference between those two facts tells you something about how this stretch of the Gulf Coast has actually spent the last two years.
The Festival That's Still Missing
The Cortez Stone Crab and Music Festival was canceled in 2024 because of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Organizers canceled it again in July 2025, citing the same storms and a recovery that outlasted a single season. Their own announcement put it plainly: they'd made the "difficult decision not to host the Cortez Stone Crab Festival this year."
This wasn't a scheduling problem. Cortez is a protected historic district, which means permits and construction there move slower than almost anywhere else on the county's coastline. The Cortez Bait and Seafood office flooded. Restaurant owner John Banyas, whose Swordfish Grill and Cortez Kitchen have anchored the village's dining scene for years, still hadn't been able to move back into his own home as of last year, after floodwaters destroyed it. When a festival's organizers are still rebuilding the buildings the festival was supposed to celebrate, canceling twice in a row is not a sign the tradition is dying. It is a sign the people who run it have their hands full with something more urgent.
In its place, Swordfish Grill and Cortez Kitchen ran their own version last November, a "Stone Crab Fest" from November 8 through 16, with limited-run menu items and live music at both restaurants instead of one shared outdoor event. It was smaller. It was theirs to control. And as of this past spring, both restaurants are back to full operation, with Swordfish Grill now running new docks and a rebuilt tiki-roofed dining area over the bay. Whether the full community festival returns this November is still an open question. What's not in question is that the season itself doesn't wait on any of it.
Where the Season Actually Announces Itself Now
With the big communal marker gone for two years running, the signal that season has arrived has shifted to the restaurants and markets that handle the claws directly. That's not a downgrade so much as a redistribution. Instead of one weekend telling you the crabs are in, you're watching four or five specials boards instead.
On the Cortez side of the bridge, Star Fish Company runs a dockside seafood market and walk-up restaurant where the claws are priced by the pound and served at picnic tables looking out at the working fishing fleet. A recent visit put medium claws at roughly $22 for five or six, cash only, no reservations, order at the window and wait for your name. It's the same operation that's been landing seafood straight off Cortez boats for decades, and it treats stone crab like what it is here: a local commodity, not an event.
A few docks down, Swordfish Grill and Cortez Kitchen serve the same claws in a different register entirely. One recent order came to $47 for four claws, plated with drawn butter and a side, at a table with a server and a water view. Same crab, same season, same village. The difference in price isn't the crab. It's the labor, the plates, the rebuilt dining room, and the fact that you're paying for someone else to crack it for you.
On the island side of the bridge, the pattern holds. The Sandbar and Beach House, both run by the Chiles Restaurant Group, list stone crab claws on their seasonal menus alongside their usual toes-in-the-sand dining, chilled with mustard sauce, served while you watch the sun go down over the Gulf. Captain Anthony's Stone Crab Store keeps things closer to the Star Fish Company model: a family-run shack, day-boat catches, cook-your-own instructions if you want them.
| Where | Setting | What a recent visit paid | Vibe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Star Fish Company, Cortez | Dockside market and walk-up counter | ~$22 for 5-6 medium claws | Cash only, picnic tables, working fleet views |
| Swordfish Grill, Cortez | Full-service waterfront dining | ~$47 for 4 claws with sides | Table service, rebuilt tiki-roofed deck |
| The Sandbar / Beach House, Anna Maria | Beachfront restaurant | Seasonal menu pricing | Toes in the sand, sunset over the Gulf |
| Captain Anthony's, Anna Maria | Family-run seafood shack | Market pricing by the claw | Walk up, ask what's fresh |
None of these prices are fixed. Stone crab pricing moves with the catch, same as it always has. But the spread between a dockside counter and a full-service deck is wide enough that it's worth knowing before you commit to one or the other on a given night.
What the Season Actually Runs On
None of this changes the biology underneath it. Florida stone crab season runs October 15 through May 1, and it has for as long as the traps have gone in the water off this coast. Crabbers still bait pots with mullet or pig's feet, pull them a week later, and only keep the claw, since the crab itself gets thrown back to grow another. Boats working the stretch between Anna Maria Island and Casey Key have run that same weekly rhythm for generations, and no festival cancellation changes any part of it.
That's really the point. The date on the calendar was never dependent on the party. The party was dependent on the village having the bandwidth to throw one, and two years after Helene and Milton, rebuilding the village has still come first. What's actually happened is a quiet shift in where the season shows up first: not on a festival flyer, but on a specials board at Star Fish Company or a chalkboard outside Captain Anthony's, the same week every October, whether or not anyone's throwing a party about it.
If you've been waiting for the festival to come back before you go get your first claws of the season, you might be waiting through most of it. The crabs don't know the difference. Go find out where the boards are already up.
Stories like this are part of what makes island life here worth paying attention to, long before anyone's thinking about buying or selling anything. If you're the kind of person who already tracks the season by which specials board changes first, and you ever find yourself wondering what it would take to make Anna Maria Island more than a visit, Kathy Harman would love to talk. Discuss your island priorities, and let's find the perfect waterfront fit.
