Big Easy Bar.B.Q & Crabshack - Covent Garden — Restaurant in London

Wow, after a hard year of working flat out we decided to book a table at this restaurant, what a disappointment, honestly the food was tasteless and bland. This is not just my point of view but I asked amongst my ten colleagues to make sure I was not being harsh. No one liked the foods and everyone had ordered something different. No let’s be honest, I think we all liked the coleslaw.

Location wise this restaurant is close to Covent Garden underground station about 10 minutes walk. The vibe of this place is loud, you might like that. The inside has two levels, the main bar is on the ground level and we were placed downstairs in a corner with a speaker right above our heads so we literally could not have a conversation. Visually the place looks great and at first sight feels like a good place to have a night out.

I ordered half of lobster 🦞 it was pathetic, not even one mouthful it was tasteless and bland.

One of the things that drove us mad was the loud music I mean really loud, in fact as I’m writing this my ears are still ringing, again I asked around the table and we could not hear ourselves speak the music was so loud it gave more than one of us a headache, I’m not just saying this to be horrible it really was loud, I mean we were eating not dancing, or watching a concert. I also had a chicken burger which was delivered as part of a wrong order no one had ordered it but I took it because the lobster 🦞 was so small and pathetic and was a whopping price of £25.00 plus the fries were extra. The chicken burger was like eating cardboard, it was “Horrible” “yuck” two of us felt sick after our meals.

Another thing that drove me crazy the location of the men’s toilet it was a massive trek downstairs, one guy passed me on his way back up and complained about the distance. I didn’t check if there were lifts for disabled folks.

One positive was the singer in the live band, he had a great voice, “the truth has to be told”. There was also a jug of beer left in our table that no one ordered, the guys drank it but of course it was added to the bill.

To finish off our horrible night, one of the staff spilled cola all over two of my colleagues, all down her back and on her really expensive coat, and all over me and my coat. I don’t want to blame the individual waiter because that’s not fair, but we had no apologies from the management and no one asked if anything was damaged. I honestly will never ever come back to this place. So much food was left behind which shows how bad the food was.

And in fact after being soaked I spent the rest of the time drying myself off and could not return to eating. All in all our experiences was dreadful. But I honestly think we just had a bad night...

AVOID AVOID AVOID

We made an impulse decision to stop here for dinner whilst out in London, thinking it would be a nice alternative to a big chain restaurant. We couldn’t have been more disappointed from start to finish. The service was mediocre from the start, as the staff are clearly overworked. The food was incredibly overpriced. I paid £19.90 for their beef brisket. It consisted of 3 (water thin) slices of beef, vinagery coleslaw and “bbq” baked beans. It didn’t even come with chips/carbs!!

I asked for a truffle mac and cheese for a friend and I to split. When we asked if it was a big portion, as it cost nearly £15, the waitress told us “yeah, it’s about the size of a bowl”. Little did we know it was about the size of an egg pan. It was absolutely tasteless and we couldn’t taste cheese or truffle. My partner’s order came incorrect, and the fact it returned in less than 90 seconds, tells me they couldn’t be bothered to cook another one, just remove the ingredients she’d asked for.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the live music was excruciatingly loud given the band were a good 10 feet away from our table. I could hardly hear myself think, let alone have a conversation with friends!

The men’s toilets also feel like an age away, and I really feel for you if you’re seated upstairs. Even from the basement floor, you have to walk down multiple corridors, through a dozen doors and down 2 sets of stairs before you get anywhere close to toilet facilities!

Finally, the cherry on top of the cake was the look on the waitress’ face and her attitude when I asked her to remove the service charge! I never pay service by card as I feel like the cash element means it’s better for the staff who deserve it and not the corporate idiots who cash their bonuses off the back off hard-working staff. She had no idea that I wouldn’t tip (certainly not the £20 the restaurant was suggesting). Nevertheless, she lost all rights to any tip that night from us.

I much rather would’ve gone for a McD’s or TGI’s. At least you know what you’re getting for your money. Not a plate full of overpriced American “food”, with staff who couldn’t care less about your experience!

I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant to anyone who cares about quality, service and all the basic business elements any restaurant should be able...

Terrible experience - They couldn't find my booking on their tablet for 15 minutes and then found it on another (we were standing there blocking the entrance) food came 30 minutes late, even though we had a 2 hour slot. Drinks arrived twenty minutes after the food (it was a bottomless brunch) the Lobster was very cold. Our designated waitress ignored all our requests and was buys using the work tablet to search for cars to buy and we ended up having to ask for a new waitress.

The 'unlimited' ribs were not given to us more than once, we paid for one round which was half the size of the Canary Wharf branch. The drink options were limited and not as advertised, same with the food (two out of four items on the menu including the steak was unavailable and once again not mentioned to us upon arrival). The set menu included coleslaw, salad, beans, fries etc. but barely any of it was served, we had to keep asking. There was no apology for anything and to make it worse, they added £80 extra to our bill (by mistake apparently).

This was a goodbye brunch for my friends as they are moving abroad and I have never been so embarrassed as I initially went to the Canary Wharf branch and we were served by Davide Funmo who treated us amazingly and treated everyone the same, checked up on us continuously which is why I chose Big Easy again but the Covent Garden branch has seriously made me regret my decisions and it was definitely a waste of money. Considering the delay with everything, we still ended up leaving well before our 2 hour slot because we were that disappointed and claustrophobic.

The windows were full of spiderwebs and insects. The chairs so close to each other, the customers on the table behind were stuck to our chairs. The waitress' responses to everything was 'it's getting ready' but nothing was arriving. Very disappointed by my trip and as previously mentioned, very embarrassed to have chosen this for us and would definitely not...