Before the Logbook, Before the Wings
There's a moment in every pilot's life where they realize the sky isn't just about altitude — it's about where you land. For me, that moment didn't happen in a cockpit. It happened in a kitchen, somewhere around 1985, in Williamsburg, Virginia, busing tables and trying not to trip while carrying a tub of plates past a family demolishing a mountain of snow crab legs.
I was in high school. Captain George's Seafood Restaurant was getting ready to open its Williamsburg location, and somehow I'd landed a spot as a busboy. Not the glamorous part of the restaurant business, mind you — I was the kid weaving between tables, clearing plates, refilling water glasses, learning the choreography of a dining room that was about to serve an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet to hundreds of people a night.
The Smell That Never Left
If you've ever been to a Captain George's, you know what hits you when you walk in. It's not just one smell — it's a symphony. Steamed blue crabs, butter, Old Bay, garlic, the sweet char of broiled fish. The Williamsburg location had that from day one. The kitchen was controlled chaos, but the food that came out of it was honest.
What I remember most isn't any single dish. It's the pace of it. The rhythm of a commercial kitchen in full swing — the calls, the timing, the way everyone moved like a pit crew at Daytona. I didn't know it then, but that rhythm would follow me into cockpits years later. Checklists. Communication. Precision under pressure. The kitchen taught me that before the FAA ever did.
Forty Years and 41,000 Feet Later
Captain George's is still there. Still serving mountains of crab legs to families who drive from hours away. The owner — the actual Captain George — is still alive, still connected to the place that bears his name.
And me? I traded the bus tub for a headset. Spent my career in the left seat, crossing the country at altitudes where seafood restaurants look like specks between runways. But every time I'd descend into a coastal airport — Norfolk, Salisbury, Ocean City — I'd catch that smell again. Not literally, but in my memory. The crabs. The butter. The chaos of a kitchen that cared.
That's what CrabbyPilot is, really. It's me trying to connect the dots between the runways I've landed on and the restaurants that made those landings worth it. It started in a Williamsburg kitchen forty years ago. I just didn't know it yet.
The Episode That Writes Itself
I've been thinking about going back. Walking into that kitchen again, forty years later. Working a shift alongside the crew that keeps Captain George's running today. Maybe sitting down with the owner and hearing stories from the early days — the ones I was too young and too busy to notice.
If he'll let me back in the building — maybe even put me to work again — that's an episode. That's the kind of story CrabbyPilot was built to tell: the intersection of food, place, memory, and the weird winding roads that connect them all.
Some people fly to escape. I fly to arrive. And sometimes, arriving means going back to where it all started.
Captain George's Seafood Restaurant has locations in Virginia Beach, Williamsburg, Myrtle Beach, and Orlando. The Williamsburg location is approximately 15 minutes from Williamsburg-Jamestown Airport (KJGG). Call ahead — the buffet fills up on weekends.