I must first say I was dragged here kicking and screaming. I HATE chain restaurants but my boyfriend wanted fish quickly and at 3 on a Sunday so I gave in to his request. He told me later he’s trying to get me out of my anti-chain shell. Well, it was disastrous from start to finish. We get there and are seated quickly. I look around and am turned off by the cheesy “beach restaurant” feel. Especially since it’s Denver for pete’s sake. As we are looking over our menus this overly friendly, strange excuse for a server comes over, says hi and SITS DOWN AT OUR TABLE. It took everything in me to not tell him to get up and be professional. He then asks if we had been there before, I hadn’t, but said yes since I knew any other answer would mean him blathering on for 5 minutes.
He bounces off to get us beer only to plunk them down on the table, spilling them in the process. Guess it’s a good thing they keep a roll of paper towels on the table. We each order salads then tell him we want to share one of the steamers only to learn later that he charged us for a “steamer for two” instead of the one advertised on the menu. Of course, instead of paying $25 we paid $50. Let me say that we have no problem paying $300 for sushi or the like but then again we’ve been served food by chef’s who have been on Iron Chef. This concoction of cheap, frozen seafood was not only an insult to the poor crustaceans but definitely not worth $50.
I do need to rewind a bit to a few other instances. First off, once our steamer did come, the server sets it down and says (oh yeah, just like the commercial), “Take off your top.” Um, wow can you be any cheesier, plus I had already found that commercial stupid and a little insulting. Really, dude? I felt like leaving right then but I suffered through a few more inane questions and we were finally left alone. Secondly, I’ve already mentioned that the food was terrible but worse we were forced to watch the entire staff break out into dance every 30 minutes during which our server kept screaming “Whoop,” throughout.
Joe’s Crab Shack is a shining example of how corporate America is ruining dining in this country. People expect overly perky servers in lieu of qualified service. People expect what is loosely called seafood, 7 days a week in a land locked area so these chains dumb down the recipes and buy cheap quality to serve people all over the country. People expect gimmicky junk all over the walls instead of restaurants with real personality and character. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been to one of these sit-down, chain restaurants and I will not be going back, even if hell does freeze over. If you want seafood in Denver, go to Max Gill and Grill.
Cons: Service, food, atmosphere, everything
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