I agree with x's assessment of the term "tourist trap"...a poor choice of words on my part. I meant that Joe's is probably not the best value.
I agree with David's comments. Joe's Miami's "signature" or "destination" restaurant, much like Pier 4 in Boston or Scoma's in San Francisco.
Having said that, if you're not into collecting signature restaurants, there are plenty of fish houses in Miami that are great. Suggest you check out Fodor's guide.

Olive, my Boston girlfriend agrees with you 100%! But to tell the truth, this Philly girl would rather have a fresh caught piece of gulf fish (like Michelle) over either stone crabs or lobster (alot less work for lazy me!)

GO BUCS!!!!! (I was forced to eat all the cheesesteaks I made last weekend for my Bucs friends . Suzie, which stadium crowd are you talking about? Philly?

Joan I was actually referring to the raiders fans. They're a different sort of bunch. Friends who have been life- long raider fans (because they live in east bay, otherewise they'd be 9er fans)have sworn off going to the games. The fans are crazy rowdy!!!! Uh, go Raiders? : 0 Hey just looking for a good game!

Andy doesn't know what he's talking about when he says "they get first pick from the boats".
They have their own suppliers, just as most fish houses or markets do.
I'm trying to picture the chef at Joe's standing on the docks looking at the claws and saying, "yes, I'll take that one. No, not that one. That one doesn't look so good, but I'll take this one over here."

Too funny, Andy. It just shows what a lot of made up crap people will post here.

Joan, I forgot you were from there...how did you avoid the heavy duty accent we heard in pre-game interviews? Suzie I wasn't sure which antics you meant either, (we were literally warned not to wear Bucs colors if going Eagles game last week) but from the sounds of things, the fan situation won't be much better this weekend. We have a tough female bartender Philly fan (strident accent and all) in one of our aerobics classes and last Saturday before class she made the comment that she felt the Eagles fans were getting a bum rap. I saw red. Now you know this isn't like me, but I had to respond, from across the room no less, about the fact that things are so bad there they have to have a judge and courtroom within their stadium to deal with the problems, and had to shovel all the snow out of the stadium for fear the fans would make snowballs encasing "foreign objects" during the game! Nice guys. I think they even out nasty the Raiders Suzie. It will be an interesting game. Despite the odds, my DH, who hasn't been wrong in 6 weeks, including the Eagles game, predicts a Tampa victory. Sure wish we were headed out there!

Back to the stone crabs. I'm not really a big fan of them either, Joan, though I do love lobstah. It's hard to get lobster down here that's any good because of the transit time I guess. FL lobster isn't even the same animal IMHO. Not wild about fish really, unless it's other shell fish and could eat those day in, day out. Shrimp, scallops, crab cakes, yes, king crab salad, yes, soft shell crab too, but somehow after about 3 stone crab claws, I've had enough. Maybe it's an acquired taste?

I agree with x's assessment of the term "tourist trap"...a poor choice of words on my part. I meant that Joe's is probably not the best value.
I agree with David's comments. Joe's Miami's "signature" or "destination" restaurant, much like Pier 4 in Boston or Scoma's in San Francisco.
Having said that, if you're not into collecting signature restaurants, there are plenty of fish houses in Miami that are great. Suggest you check out Fodor's guide.