Salt Water Willy’s

Bad service, bad crawfish, undercooked rice and bad taste. Overall, after reading some of the other reviews, I actually feel lucky as I did not come away with explosive diarrhea, nor any other type of burning sensation. It is, without doubt, the most disappointed I’ve ever been after spending $ 65 bucks on a meal. It is now a family joke to eat at this place. Not good.

If you like rotten crawfish and oysters this is the place to go. I live right beside Salt Water Willys and have tried this place 3 – 4 times. Everytime i have had horrible food but the service is always pretty good. Im not for sure if they are not cleaning there seafood properly or what because everytime the food just tastes dirty. I hate to give a one star but the food here is just not good.

Rare are the words «Kids, you were right, we should have gone to Applebee’s» uttered, but Saturday afternoon surely should have been a day for the Bee.
As we drove past several well known chain eateries in the Grapevine Mills complex we settled on Willy’s under my notion of «Trying something different».
We ordered the $ 15 Blackened Chicken with Crawfish étouffée, a$ 9 bowl of gumbo, a kids chix tenders and fries, and a kids Mac & Cheese. The chicken was like chewing stale beef jerky, and was covered with a brown goo that looked like someone’s nightmare. The crawfish, all 6 of em, were fine, but drowning in the river of goo. The gumbo was watery beef stock with rice and chopped up hot dog pieces. Seriously.
The kids meals were nasty too — the chicken tenders were just as bad as my chicken, except covered in some fried coating of nastiness. The Mac and Cheese was coagulated velveeta.
After a $ 45 tab, and slow service to boot, safe to say this will be our crew’s first and last visit to Salt Water Willy’s.

Intrigued by the name we stopped in on a Tuesday evening enroute to DFW Airport, which BTW is half price Hurricanes (aka Slurricanes) and crawfish-​ewww– ($ 2.99 or $ 5.99 per #). The hurricane’s were better than I have had at other establishments (Razoos) they ran out of bread but offered hush puppies as alternative, lemme tell u I could have filled up on those and drinks alone. Everyone enjoyed their meals and mudbugs and the music was festive.
Why the three stars the service – the service was slow even went to far as to place empty glass by the edge of the table – waitress passed our table and looked 3 – 4 before refills received. The drinks and food make up for the slow service.

This place sux. I frequented this place a lot when I found out about it 4 or 5 years ago. Back then i would of given it a 4 star rating. After just recently moving back to dfw I been trying to give it chance after chance to redeem its self. 3 strikes your the suck. Service is worse than armature hour no one that works here seems to care about anything much less quality of food or service. The food is horrible it always has been but its one saving grace in my opinion back in the day was the craw fish. This is no longer the case they are beyond bad. I write this after spending a hour+ in the toilette with explosive diarrhea. From the burn I am positive this is due to foul quality craw fish. I will never step a foot in this place again.

Bland & cold food. I ordered the ribeye steak & my friend ordered the shrimp. They bring out a starter muffin that tasted good after I asked my server to put the cold bread in the microwave. My plate, mashed potatoes, and grilled vegetables had to be put in a microwave because it was cold. I would think that the server should had realized the food was so cold. The food still tasted bland after it was REHEATED. A manager applied 20% off the bill. However the meal was 90% terrible. Never in this life time will I set foot in this restaurant. The waiter was not attentive. He dropped the food off without coming back to check on us. I had to grab another waiter. The only good thing I can say about this place is that the pink lemonade was good. So if you just love lemonade very much then you should come here.

A great CASUAL place to for some good seafood.
DO NOT COME HERE if you are pretentious or want «red lobster seafood».
This place is straight forward, casual, and relaxing. A real place where you can grab a beer and some seafood. Nothing over the top, nothing overly priced.
While in town on business, stopped here with a colleague and our meals were normal. The seafood and grilled vegetable were extremely fresh, and the portions were texas-​sized.
Again, if you actually like the bland, old, not very exciting Red Lobster, this is NOT the place to go.
Come here if you want a super-​casual, come-​as-​you-​are restaurant.

WOW! Although this spot certainly is not 4 or 5 stars, I am surprised @ all the 1 and 2 star reviews. Perhaps there have been some recent improvements in the food preparation, as most of the negative reviews were from 2008 – 2010; or we caught the Chef having a really good day. Our overall experience edged over a 3, but unable to push it up to a 4 in part because of the drink prices, and our oh so apparently «unhappy to be at work» barkeep/​server. Never once saw a smile on her pretty little face.
Food — 3 – 4 stars
Service — 3 stars
Atmosphere (in the bar area) — 4 stars
Price Point — (for drinks) 2 – 3 stars
Overall — 3.5 stars
Yes, this is not upscale dining, but we enjoyed the casual laid-​back atmosphere in the bar on our first visit to SWW. Very comfy bar stools and so importantly, lots of cold air conditioning on this 21^st day of consecutive triple digit temps. Although this area is smoking, there were no folks puffing away, so it was quite pleasant. Nice booths on one wall, long dark shiny wooden bar with ample lighting from the large windows with no loud music or blaring TV. Only a couple of other patrons seated at the bar when we arrived around 1400, and one table of four. The dining area was about half full. Also, a fairly large patio for al fresco dining, but not appealing in this heat.
Promptly approached by the sad little girl for drink orders, which were quickly fulfilled along with the menus being plopped in front of us. She wasn’t rude, just no friendly greeting or enthusiastic show of welcome. Weird indeed. Tips are partly based on a cheerful accommodating attitude, right?.
Scanned the menu and BFF and I decided on two apps to share. We made the right decision.
Artichoke & Spinach Dip — Generous serving with large pieces of tender artichoke hearts in a very creamy, cheesy spinach-​y mixture. Lots of flavor and a great surprise — served with warm soft Parmesan Pita triangles instead of the usual chips that accompany this appetizer. PERFECT ! Note — the dip was just warm, not bubbly hot; temperature could have been improved upon, but we chowed down, ahhing and oohing with every bite. (Would love some of the leftovers we left behind right now) A strong 3 stars.
Shrimp Scampi Bruschetta — the STAR of the meal. 6 LARGE Shrimp, perfectly sauteed in lemon garlic butter, tender & moist; set atop medallions of grilled crostini, brushed with EVOO, with tomatoes, basil and some balsamic. The flavors were well blended and absolutely scrumptious. Our favorite of the two dishes and a most adequate serving. This app is perfect for two moderately hungry folks. This treat garnered a strong 4 stars.
Both apps reasonably priced in the $ 8 – 9 range.
The other factor in the reduced star rating — $ 10 for an average TS margarita? I’ve spent more elsewhere, but those were over the top yumalicious. These were just okay, nothing remarkable. Next time it’ll be an ice cold Stella for me. Also, no HH pricing on the draft beers, all in the $ 4 – 5 range for Blue Moon and Stella, bottled domestic $ 2.50 was the best offered.
As another reviewer noted, we were given the dinner menu @ 1400 in the afternoon. A little bit strange, but maybe this is a «weekend» thing; lunch only during the week? However, glad this was the case as the Shrimp Bruschetta is not on the lunch menu.
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and voiced a commitment to go back when in the area., quite worth the 20 minute drive from North Dallas; more menu options we want to try.
We’ll hope at that time that our cute little server will be in a better frame of mind. She didn’t ruin our experience as we are happy-​go-​lucky folks, but she certainly could have added to it with one or two smiles, like this :)

Pseudo Cajun chain cuisine: not bad, service was good, prices aimed at tourists (too high). Full bar helps.
I enjoyed the huge shrimp platter, even the veggies and rice were good.

Visited this location on Saturday. We had signed up for a frequent flier miles promotion that gives miles on dining purchases and Saltwater Willy’s is a participating place. We had been here about a year prior to this visit.
Arrived at about 6 and it wasn’t very crowded. The manager seated us and made the comment «This is my favorite table», weird but ok whatever. The server was prompt and was attentive. That was a plus. My wife ordered the special which was a tilapia and pasta dish. I had the fried shrimp. We both ordered a salad. The salad was very big, it could have been smaller and we would have been satisfied. My entrée was ok, the fries were hot but very soggy. They probably just didn’t have the fryer hot enough, rookie mistake but not unedible. My wife’s dish was hot. The fish was a little overbreaded and lacked flavor. We think it could have used more spices.
Overall the service was good. The food was very average. Probably worth another visit. We spotted a crab leg bucket a neighboring table ordered and that interested us.
For what it is worth here are a couple of things we thought were out of the ordinary. While waiting for our food the manager seated another couple nearby and he told them «Here you are, this is my favorite table», I laughed at his tagline. Another peculiar site was a manager (we think) had a huge beard. He had it groomed but it is something you don’t normally see in a eating establishment.
Probably not a destination but on a whim this isn’t a terrible place to eat.