Crafty Crab — Restaurant in Bowie

I went there on Saturday, the greeters were very rude and not helpful at all. We were told that we couldn’t sit at the bar even though there were seats at the bar, because the bartender was too busy. Say what??!! After talking to the manager he apologized and said he would speak to them, he offered to seat us at the bar but after waiting we figured we would just wait for our table. Additional training is needed with the greet staff. There were plenty of empty tables but a lot of people were waiting for tables in the front area. I was not expecting a good experience.

However, after we were seated things got MUCH better. Our server, unfortunately I don’t remember her name, was awesome very attentive and answered all of our questions about the menu. We started with appetizers, my wife got hush puppies and I ordered gumbo, the hush puppies were very good flavorful with kernels of corn. The gumbo was just OK to me but adding some pepper and some hot sauce kicked it up and made it better but honestly it needs some work.

Again, our server was great making sure we had water and any other drinks we needed. My wife ordered the shrimp basket and I figured I’d go with the large seafood platter with garlic butter seasoning. So, one thing about me is I like my food piping hot, so when our meal came after a short wait it was delivered in a large plastic bag and when I opened the bag steam came out of the bag, the food was GENEROUSLY seasoned and smelled delicious, it included crab clusters, crawfish, mussels, clams, extra large shrimp (prawns maybe) corn and potatoes and the portions of each were more than adequate. I immediately dug in sampling each item and the flavor was incredible. Caution: this can be a messy experience, they provide you with bibs and plastic gloves I used the bib but couldn’t bring myself to use the gloves.

I became full in a short time,EVERYTHING was delicious. I still had more than half my food left and was thinking “What the heck am I going to do with all this food?” After talking to our server she explained that I should re-tie the bag with the food and sauce, steam it again for about 10 minutes when you’re ready to eat it again put the juice in another bag she provided put the food in shake it up and enjoy. I did just that the next day and made another meal out of it. I added sausage to it but that was just me thinking it could use some. BTW, my wife said the shrimp basket was good as well. I only drank beer and water so can’t comment on the mixed drinks.

I wanted to give my review on this restaurant since it is new in the area and does have competition from a couple of similar restaurants. I highly recommend this restaurant. Hopefully they will keep up the standard of piping hot food and generous portions. Work on the greet crew and I’ll give...

I want to warn anyone possibly who thinking about throwing a group function at the Bowie MD location. Please...Please choose any location besides this one. I had a horrible birthday function here and don't recommend anyone. It took us 20 mins to be seated and after seated it took another 30 to even be greeted by our waitress. When she finally arrived to "WRITE DOWN" our drink orders she got them all wrong when they arrived & I ended up passing the right drinks to everyone in our party. Reason I put write down in all caps is because she wrote them down and still gave the wrong drinks to people. Then she took our orders which arrived at a descent time, but once again people got the wrong meals & I played waiter again giving out the right food to people. Lastly when we finished eating it took like 40 mins for our waitress to come give us our bill. Only to find out it took her that long because she was seen in the back by one of our guests going to the restroom to see her getting her hair retwisted in the back. We had to get another waiter to get her for us. When she finally arrived, she gave us the bill in which she said we could only break up to five receipts. We did, but didn't have an issue with that, but wish that was explained before she took our orders. Now the issues that came with that is the large gratuity & tips....yes tips too already included on everyone's bill. If she was the waitress instead of me being the waiter we wouldn't mind tipping her, but she was never at the table or didn't even checkup to make sure we were good. Overall, that was the worst visit I ever had at the others I been to. Warning don't waste your time filing a complaint via their website because you never get a response from customer support. I filed three complaints since the same month of the birthday function & never heard nothing back from anyone. All together we dropped almost $960 & another $300+ in tips/gratuity. Me (I paid whole bill) & one others sharing a bill alone spent $268 in food & $45 in gratuity/tips. So please think twice about this location. If someone would've at least apologized, offered a refund, or hell offer a gift card (for different location of course) I wouldn't have written this report & filed...

Hello Hunny Bees!!! 🌻🐝👑💕 It's your girl Hunny again giving a review of another local small business.

We Love seafood 😋 so you know I couldn't wait to check this place out. My son football practice went over last night so we didn't arrive at the restaurant until 8:30pm and they close at 10pm. So maybe that's why this place wasn't impressive. We have our 10 year old with us and we were seated close to the bar area. I didn't say anything because I figured they were about to close it wasn't a lot of people so they were probably closing off the restaurant 🤷 😕. We are seated and it takes about 15 minutes for someone to come and take our drink order. While waiting there is a lady at the bar talking loud, cussing and speaking obscenities to a man who is also engaged with a group of people who are talking loud. The restaurant looks to be ran by kids and a small asian young man who has nothing under control. Our server Stacy gave good customer service considering the environment and she was also working the bar so it took a while for her to come back. We received our appetizers calamari and wings. They sent the calamari out with marinara sauce instead of cocktail sauce. They sent the wings out without the ranch dressing all of which we ordered. The calamari was good the wings were not tasty at all. I didnt fuss cause they are about to close. All three of us order the Snow crab legs special. We thought we were going t get at least two clusters of the snow crab legs. They only gave us one. They must have been trying to get rid of potatoes because we each had at least 5 big whole red potatoes. It was nothing to write home about. Lets not forget that while we are trying to eat the lady at the bar was being obnoxious for our entire meal no manager came out to ask her to calm down that there are children present my son said mom they are testing my Christianity LOL. He wanted to ask her to stop cursing. Smh the food was okay, the service was good. I wouldn't go back there's so many better places like Rock and Toss not too far from there. I like to try different spots but we wish we had went there instead.

This is Sippin Tea with Hunny...