"It would look silly for us," says Ronnie Rosenbluth, who owns the pizza shop. "Crabs are the epitome of not kosher. I wouldn't apply for it. I wouldn't display it if I won it."
And then there's that peevish meaning of crab that Marylanders don't like to talk about.
"People when they are a little upset can be crabby," Thompson says. "It doesn't really suggest something nice and pleasant about a place - the crab award."
Baltimore's inspiration for the crabbies is New York City, which unveiled its Golden Apple awards three years ago.
Despite the Big Apple's promise to award its cleanest restaurants with not only a certificate but a door decal, it has faced something of a dearth of enthusiasm. Which is to say that of the city's nearly 28,000 eating establishments, only 19 display an apple - down from a high of 40.
Farrow isn't concerned with numbers. She'll be happy if "even just a handful" of Baltimore restaurants apply for the crab awards.
"We just want to get something started," she says.
Howard County also has a program to encourage sanitary restaurants - Healthy Howard.
And 10 years ago, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health instituted a restaurant letter grading system with the cleanest places earning A's.
In the beginning, few restaurants earned the coveted A. But now, 90 percent of the county's restaurants can boast a top score.
"It's been a win for consumers and business owners and public health," says Rachel Tyree, a Health Department spokeswoman. "We get calls from around the world about this program. It's been a gold standard for us."
Buzz Beler, who owns the Prime Rib steakhouses in Mount Vernon and Washington, says he would love nothing more than to show off his spick-and-span restaurants with certificates or decals. If he had the chance, he would display such an honor prominently near the front door.
"If I go to that kind of trouble," he asks, "why shouldn't I be rewarded for it with the Clean Crab?"
But Beler thinks the Informed Crab sounds like a pain in the claw - way too much effort.
Lars Rusins, the Baltimore Foodies founder who eats out at least twice a week, says he couldn't care less about seeing a Clean Crab. But an Informed Crab might sway him.
"I'm trying to watch my weight," he says. "Would it necessarily be a make-or-break decision? No. But would it help sway my decision a little bit? Yeah."
It's unclear exactly what Baltimore's Clean and Informed crabs would look like. Fuzzy bath towels in their pinchers? Tiny tubes of antibiotic shell sanitizer? Perhaps little reading glasses perched on their nonexistent noses?
The prototypical crabs have yet to be realized. The Health Department invites the city's imaginative and artistic residents to bring on the ideas.
Thompson has a few thoughts. But none of them involve crabs.
"We have a state flower that's a Black-Eyed Susan - we could use that. Or maybe they could work in something with Charm City. Like some sort of Charm City Golden Restaurant award. Or how about the Charm City Star - they could get a special star with maybe the dome of City Hall inside, maybe a dome and a knife and fork ...
"I just can't imagine them sticking with this name," he says. "And I love crabs more than anyone in the state, probably."
jill.rosen@baltsun.com sam.sessa@baltsun.com
