First Annual Crab Feed Draws A Big Crowd

The first annual all-you-can-eat crab feed kicked off at the Watsonville Airport inside the Pacific Aircare hangar on Saturday and approximately close to three hundred people came out to crack open some of the soft shelled crustacean legs.

The man in charge of the night was Theo Wierdsma, executive director of the Watsonville Fly-In and Air Show. And in a town filled with annual crab feeds from the Heritage Foundation, Filipino, and Portuguese communities, Wierdsma wasn’t afraid to get in the mix.

“It’s nothing new,” said Wierdsma. “A lot of the organizations do crab feeds. We just had to come up with something that we can still do within the time frame.”

Wierdsma mentioned a time frame because part of the rules about hosting a crab feed is it must be done in certain months of the year and April happens to be one of them. He also mentioned his experience about putting Thursday’s event together and what he expected.

“It’s the first time that we’ve done the crab feed,” said Wierdsma. “Not really knowing what we're getting in for, it was a lot of stress going into this. If we had too many people not enough food, you know?”

Fortunately the 350 pounds of crab meat from Freedom Meat Locker was plenty to go around for the guest. Folks also got a green salad with Italian dressing, penne pasta with meat sauce, and garlic bread and on the drink menu were sodas, bottled water, wine and beer.

There were also plenty of volunteers on the scene to help out Wierdsma including Chuck Humbhreys, Mark Kadrich, Michelle Reid, Randy Pesce, Jesus Hurtado and Boy Scout troop leader Chris Garcia along with several kids from troop 558 out of Watsonville.

Thursday’s crab feed also featured a silent auction with small prizes like wine bottles, suitcases filled with random boxed items, posters, and fishing poles.

A regular auction with special announcer former Watsonville chief of police Terry Medina had bigger and better prizes such as a chance to sky dive that went for $700, a plane ride in a WWII Vultee Valiant BT-13 Trainer for $400, and a Sedona Getaway trip that sold at $1200.     

The No Respect Band was on board to dish out some classic tunes like La Bamba, Rolling on the River, and My Girl and people hit the dance floor towards the end of the night.

After tonight’s big turnout and a grand success in both auctions, Wierdsma was asked if he thinks another crab feed can happen next year.

“Oh absolutely,” said Wierdsma. “After today? Yeah. We’re even looking at the possibility of doing a lobster feed.”