What Happened to Rascal's BBQ and Crab House? (New Castle, DE)

Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network) visited Rascal's BBQ and Crab House in New Castle, Delaware for the show's third episode, which aired February 2, 2011; a same-day WHYY report previewing the broadcast noted that Food Network's own preview material called it one of the dirtiest kitchens host Robert Irvine had encountered on the series to that point, and said the restaurant "hides behind mountains of trash." The restaurant was owned by Steve Kledaras, who had taken it over from his father, and, as shown in the episode, was struggling both with cleanliness and with sales of its seafood and barbecue menu, with mounting garbage and clutter obscuring the dining room and putting off potential customers driving past on the highway. Over the program's typical two-day timeline, Irvine's team deep-cleaned the kitchen, replaced worn-out equipment, and introduced a revised menu built around the restaurant's crab and barbecue offerings, along with an updated dining room meant to modernize the space for New Castle diners passing along U.S. Route 13.

According to a description on the fan site Reality TV Updates, Kledaras did not keep Irvine's menu for long, reverting to his earlier menu and portion sizes because he felt the new dishes were too different for his regular customers, and the restaurant subsequently cut back to weekend-only hours before closing in May 2011, with Kledaras citing difficulty sourcing crab. That timeline comes from the fan site alone; no official record of it was found. What is independently confirmed is that Rascal's is no longer operating: Yelp's business listing for "Rascals Crab & Seafood Restaurant" at 1102 N. DuPont Highway in New Castle was marked permanently closed as of an update in July 2026. A separate web description suggested a cigar shop had since occupied the address, but no dated, named source supports that detail.