Joe’s Crab Shack

This is my first time to a Crab Shack. We arrived just before a large group, but this didn’t seem to slow our service down at all. The service was fast and the food was great. For the price I think it’s a good deal. We had the calamari, which everyone sells but few get right. I’m glad to say it was great.

I have to start off by saying that the portions are great. I came here with one of my good friends around his birthday, and he’s a guy who pretty much always finishes his meal when he goes out. But this place was an exception. We had plenty of food to take home. We also paid enough for it; this place isn’t the cheapest!
All said and done, I think it was worth it. The crabs are good, of course, but so are the other dishes. Their specials and platter options make it pretty easy for you to try quite a few different foods between your appetizer and main dish. It’s in a cool spot too. I’d recommend it.

We love Joe’s Crab Shack. It’s our dining choice in every place we visit that has one. Last night’s dinner was great as always. The service was superb and quick!

Let me start by saying the waitress was excellent. After that there just isn’t much more to say that is positive. The peel and eat shrimp were overcooked, the salmon was fishy and the chicken was awful. I want to like Joes because I think the concept is great but the food quality just isn’t there.

Been to many Joe’s Crab Shack’s and this was by far the worse I’ve ever been to. The crab legs were cold and shrunken terribly in the soft plastic like she’ll.

Came here for sea food. Service was slow and food was alright. Tried to sign up on their website to get a free appetizer but the email didn’t come through Until the next day and followed with a $ 10 off coupon. Try to sign up one day ahead get get any discount offer.

No crab in the crab nachos, no lobster on the redfish lobster which was ½ of a small fish, no flavor in the lobster buckets, the eastern platter was all French fries and fried onions.
Only star is for the Great Service, nice people, but will never eat in the Pittsburg one again.
If visiting station square eat at Texas de Brazil
New Brunswick one is great, actually has crab in the dip.

We really like this place! It’s very tasty! The only thing we did not like is we went once during dinner and once during lunch. We got the same exact thing both times, and the portion shrunk drastically during dinner. Not sure if that was common or not but it was kind of disappointing. Other than that the food is amazing!

If I could give place ZERO stars I would. Went here for lunch and the place wasn’t too crowded and seemed nice at first. We sat down and waited… and waited… and waited. 20 minutes later a waiter came by and took our drinks order. We waited… waited…waited. 45 min passed by and we asked to speak with a manager. They apologized and said they took our appetizer er… waited…waited…waited…see a common theme here? After we’d been there for 1.5 hours (not kidding) we just walked out. What a way to ruin a day of your vacation! This place is a P.O.S. STAY THE HELL AWAY!!!

Solid food and service. I had no claw extremities on either of my crab clusters. For a dish that cost me 27 dollars and them… corn .10; ³¹⁄₃₅ shrimp (max) 6 @ $ 8/​# is $ 1.5; potatos (3 small reds) a couple cents; snow crab $ 5−6/# for a half # cluster; and the dungeoness which is a little more expensive, 8ish. So about $ 7 their cost. How can they justify such a mark up and neglect to send the claws? Would call this a 2.5 star mistake but its not available.

Oh joes. It’s a cookie cutter of a place. If you have been to one you have been to them all. But when it comes to a bucket of crab they do a good job of it. We sat outside and enjoyed the sunset over two great buckets of lobster and crab. But really. I enjoy going about one time a year and they always provide good service and a relaxed very casual setting. It’s a little pricy but hey it’s crab. This joes is clean and has good service with the food flying out right behind it. The only bad thing about almost all the joes I have been two is the shrimp is always over cooked. I can tell they toss it in with the crab that takes longer to cook to speed things up but it just comes out a little tough. So avoiding the shrimp in the buckets the other shrimp is always good including the stuffed shrimp. I also really enjoy the crab dip and key lime pie when I get it. For a chain it’s a great place and this one in station square is very good.

This was our first time at a Joe’s Crab Shack. It was very busy, and we were told it would be a 45 minute wait for a table. Thankfully several of the parties on the list were a no show when their names were called, so we only waited about 15 minutes. There was a long wait for our food, but the manager took a hefty amount off of our bill to make up for it. The food was delicious, and I would prefer it to Red Lobster. I got the the Bairdi crab bucket, my husband got Joe’s classic steamer, and my daughter got the Double Shrimp. I would definitely recommend Joe’s Crab Shack to someone who is craving seafood!

There’s really nothing inherently wrong about chain restaurants. I don’t like when people automatically write off a place just because it has other locations…
I printed off a coupon and got a free appetizer worth about $ 10! That’s already a plus of a chain restaurant because the websites are great, organized and offer coupons. Anyways, I thought the amount of food and the taste of food were great! I took my family here this past weekend and everyone came back full and satisfied! We ordered 2 steampots, the crab nachos and the jumbo coconut shrimp. Surprisingly, it was enough for all of us (granted, my sis doesn’t really eat seafood so she was happy with her hushpuppies and fries…). I really recommend the KJ steampot because it came with loads of goodness: snow crab, scallops on a stick, clams, 3 Maine lobster claws, an ear of corn and potatoes. The garlicky sauce was yummers! Although I did see in one of the pictures posted here that it should have come with some tubs of clarified butter. We did not get those. Oh, well.
The crab kit that everyone got was super cute and the buckets at every table were useful. I liked the setup and the speed of the food coming was fast as well. Our waiter was friendly enough but kind of slow at responding to things… e.g. I asked him for a knife since it didn’t come with that as part of the table setting. He just stared at me for a few seconds and left. After 15 minutes, he came back with a huge bucket of knives. Lol, one would have been enough but at least I got my knife!
The atmosphere was lively; it certainly a popular restaurant in Station Square. It smelled fishy and the furniture looked slightly damp. I just wish they provide free cheddar biscuits or something…

This is the best Joes Crab Shack I have ever visited. Christina my waitress was the best waitress and provided excellent customer service. She made some really great suggestions, and up sold my original order, which turned out to be some really great crab legs. Thank you Christina for providing great customer service. Keep up the good work. Thank you Christina for providing great customer service keep up the good work.

POS system broken. Hair on food.
Had to ask for drinks order to be delivered after a 10 – 15 minute wait with maybe 4 tables occupied in the place. Worst restaurant experience I’ve had in years.
Word of advice:
AVOID WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE
Bar Louie across the way is still corporate but better run, customer focused, and cleaner

My dad and I came in for a later lunch on Sunday and there weren’t many people, probably because of the terrible weather. We were seated by the window which gave us a nice view out onto the river. Our server was friendly and made conversation easily.
My dad and I shared a Classic Steampot and the Blackened Mahi Tacos. I thought the steampots came with both corn and potatoes, but our pot was missing potatoes. My dad wasn’t bothered enough to say anything. The food was cooked well, but all the seafood and meat was too heavily seasoned and too salty for me. The only exceptions to this were the corn in the steampot (I ate the half covered by the husk, and it was delicious – crunchy and sweet) and the chips that came with the tacos. My dad and I also found that there wasn’t nearly enough pico de gallo to eat with all the tortilla chips.
It was a nice meal, but I’m not big on seafood so I probably won’t be back anytime soon.

We have been to Joe’s Crab Shack on the South Side many times and in different cities. This time was a bit of a disappointment.
Service was good but food was not as good as it used to be. There were 8 of us and the checks totaled around $ 300.
We had 5 of the various buckets of crabs and lobster pots. When asked how everything was we told the water the lobsters were overdone and he said «yes, we hear that all the time». My husband ordered the seaside combo which included scallops. The scallops were so small they looked like they had been cut in fourths. My granddaughter ordered the «paint the crab» dessert which is a rice krispie shaped crab. After she «painted» it she went to eat it and could not bite into it because it was so hard.
I think we will be finding another place to eat after this visit.

Talk about service, they went so far as to go next door to get celery for my crab dip appitizer. Thats great service.
Oysters spicy. Mmmm mmmm good
Grest value
Great service

Say what you like about chain restaurants. I despise almost all of them. Almost. There are certain standards expected that chains rarely have the skill set to pull off. Chain diners don’t fall into automatic failure, and Joe’s Crab Shack also remains unaffected.
Shack, it’s in the name, so you can’t complain about the décor. Having been born on the east coast, my mom is from Maine-​dad from Maryland, I know seafood. And you can’t complain about the seafood here. The clam strips are gigantic and delicious, not sure how they could go wrong unless they were frozen, small, chewy bits of fried dough. Which they were not. The corn was very sweet for this time of year, that troubled me, but didn’t stop me from eating it. The Snow, Queen, and King crabs were all delicious as well, stay safe and get old bay seasoning version.
Now the reason for three stars. There is zero beer selection. For anyone that would like to drink a delicious draft beer paired with seafood, you will not find the non chain/​shore town seafood house selection. Just the normal collection of crappy, watered down pilsners made from corn and rice. To bad they didn’t start stocking Mad Dog ²⁰⁄₂₀ to match, I would have ordered a fruit punch one. Or perhaps some Boone’s Farm, Colt 45, or PBR. Hold on a minute, I take it all back. I’ve just been informed that they have PBR.

Just a resounding meh. This place is okay, but it’s meh.
It’s a chain restaurant, I didn’t have high expectations. My friend had the mahi mahi and I ordered the KJ Steampot, which had crab legs, mussels, and scallops. I asked for mine with no mussels. The waiter said that was fine but that I would not then get extra scallops. I understood, I just really hate mussels but liked scallops.
It took FOREVER to get our food, so long that the manager came over and completely comped my KJ Steampot which was unexpected and nice of him. So nice, I feel bad about this next part:
my friends mahi just sucked. It was cold. I think it must have been waiting for my meal to be served. I could have made smething better at home. then again, I could have hand reared the mahi mahi fish from egg to dinner in the time it took for our food to come out.
The presentation of my KJ steampot was cool, the scallops were on little sea shells. They were also completely over cooked so they were chewy, and the flavor of the butter garlic sauce over powered them. Basically there were a vehicle for garlic butter.
The crab legs themselves were also VERY overcooked which made them really hard to eat, the crab meat kept flaking in the shell and overall… just not amazing.
Also no happy hour except on Tuesday.
I will possibly be back, but it will be a while before I return!