Chesapeake Beach Dining: Three Real Spots With a Gaming-Room Twist

Three Confirmed Venues, All With Gaming Rooms

Chesapeake Beach's dining scene has a genuinely unusual, well-documented feature: three named venues in town combine food service with electronic gaming, a direct legacy of the town's turn-of-the-century "Little Nevada" nickname from its railroad-resort era. The Rod 'N' Reel Resort operates real, current electronic gaming (over 270 video pull tab machines, per its own site, plus bingo), open 24 hours daily, alongside its resort dining. Two additional, separately named venues, Traders Restaurant and Abner's Crabhouse, also host electronic pull-tab game rooms, per casino.org's own reporting on the town's gaming industry.

This is not a marketing description -- it traces to a specific Maryland legal mechanism. A 2001 court ruling enabled electronic gaming machines locally, and when Maryland later restricted such machines statewide, counties like Calvert County were grandfathered in where machines already operated, distinct from the six full commercial casinos the state authorized in 2012. That is why a night out at any of these three spots here can include a pull-tab game room in a way that would be unusual almost anywhere else on this site.

What This Page Does Not Invent

Beyond confirming that Rod 'N' Reel Resort, Traders Restaurant, and Abner's Crabhouse exist and each hosts electronic gaming, this page does not state a current menu, cuisine type, price range, or dress code for any of the three, none of which were independently confirmed this research pass. It also does not name any additional restaurants beyond these three -- a town with an active dining-and-gaming scene like this one plausibly has other independent restaurants nearby, but plausibility is not confirmation, and this page holds the line at what was actually verified.

Also left deliberately unstated: current bingo hours beyond the resort's own listed "24 hours daily" for electronic gaming, and any specific current gaming-revenue figures. Confirm all of that directly with each venue before planning a visit around it.

A Real, Currently Unresolved Local Gaming Story

The gaming rooms at these three venues are not a settled, uncontroversial backdrop -- they sit inside a real, current local governance debate. On November 7, 2024, Chesapeake Beach voters decisively rejected a ballot measure asking whether to permit expanded gaming in town (additional electronic bingo machines, casino slots, table gaming), roughly 76 percent opposed (1,285 of 1,684 votes), per casino.org's own reporting. That was the second such rejection in four years, following a similar 2020 vote (roughly 72 percent opposed). In other words, the electronic gaming at Rod 'N' Reel Resort, Traders Restaurant, and Abner's Crabhouse today reflects the town's existing, grandfathered machines -- not an expansion voters have twice turned down.

This page does not assume any different outcome for a future referendum, and does not invent specific current machine-revenue figures or exact vote counts beyond the cited totals. For anything more current than the November 2024 result, check with the Town of Chesapeake Beach directly.

Verify Before You Visit

This page intentionally does not list a broader Chesapeake Beach restaurant directory, specific menus, or prices beyond the confirmed existence of Rod 'N' Reel Resort, Traders Restaurant, and Abner's Crabhouse, and their shared electronic-gaming feature. Small waterfront towns see real turnover in independent restaurants, and hours or offerings at any of these three can change. The reliable move is to confirm current hours, menus, and gaming-room details directly with each venue, and to check current local visitor guides for a fuller, up-to-date restaurant list before planning a visit.