Joe's Crab Shack — Restaurant in Branson

The server was great! Very friendly, and when we had an issue with our food she was really nice about it. The food, that's was the issue, First she let us know the bucket we wanted wasn't available, gave us another option for one that we could substitute the clams for shrimp and cajun for the old bay. Great since I cant handle spicy. My son got the dinner with 3 different shrimp and fish. Our buckets came out with clams and the cajun seasoning. My sons dinner came out with cold nasty fries, shrimp not fully cooked, and cold fish. The server takes the food back, manager comes out with "hot fresh fries" it was the same fries they just tossed them back in the fryer to heat them up, they did the same with the rest of my sons shrimp and fish, my son used to be a line cook, he knows what reheated fried food looks like. Our buckets we got, There was still a clam in mine, all the did was toss back in the water to get the cajun seasoning off, which didn't work, you could still taste it. The manager apparently thought bringing out fresh cooked shrimp would make up for it. Our experience was horrible there and with paying over 150.00 for appetizers, food and oh yeah, the one drink my son ordered that apparently had dye free pineapple juice it.. 🙄 that's what he was told any way. We will never go back, if I want twice fried food and twice boiled seafood I would have gone to Captain Ds or LJS.

01/15/2023 Adding an update, I contacted the email and at first seemed like they were generally concerned about our "experience". After about a week I finally received a call (after a second email, stating I haven't been contacted) And was told I would receive a gift certificate, that was over a month ago and still no gift certificate. Very disappointing. I just called the restaurant again, gave it some time because of the holidays, and was told I would have to call back after 10pm on Tuesday to speak to the GM, Wasn't the GM I spoke to the first time, so why would I have to explain it all over again???? Very, very poor...

OMG where to begin...So first things first, this used to be one of our go-to spots when we came to Branson. Not anymore. I realize inflation is around and with the current economic uncertainties it's hard on restaurants, but....

Jacking the prices of your items upwards 30% while reducing portions and removing items from recipes is just wrong. Every time I've ever been in a Joe's, i've gotten a steam pot -- the largest one on the menu at that. It used to come with a healthy portion of legs and claws, potatoes, corn, and some shrimp. Now, I got a corn cob with kernels missing, a few legs and 1 claw. A few of the legs were inedible as they had no meat in them, and the shrimp was nasty -- it needed deveined amongst other things. Oh, and it didn't even come in a pot! They brought out a plate, cut open a plastic bag, dumped the contents on the plate and handed it to me. I mean, I get table service but not with a tacky plastic bag.

And it wasn't just my dish we had a problem with. My daughter ordered the boiled shrimp appetizer. over 60% of her shrimp were black on the bottom and over 80% needed deveined. We sent it back and they brought another one that was 20% black and 60% needing deveined. We sent that back too.

Service was fine, although after telling the hostess we dont want to be by a bunch of children she proceeded to surround us with the little noisemakers, but hey...

So what used to be our go-to spot has turned into a sour spot. We will give it another try someday in the future -- you know, give them time to work through this mess -- but likely not anytime soon. For the prices we paid, we should have walked out full and happy. For us, we left with 2 empty stomachs and a...

While visiting Branson we tried for 2 days to get in to eat at Joe's. We attempted reservations both days only to be told reservations were full and they were only accepting walk ins but that wait times were likely to be lengthy. I realize Covid precautions are a big part of the blame, but we arrived early in order to get our names on the list and the place was mostly empty. And social distancing didn't appear to be in practice. No empty tables between guests. Surely there's a better way to manage capacity restrictions imposed by the virus yet still serve your customers. Turning people away at the door cannot be the best practice. If you have people waiting in line to give you their money, what would your investors want you to do? Maybe expanded hours? Maybe instead of telling people to leave, encourage them to place a take out order? As we were waiting our turn I counted 13 families turned away because they would be closing at 8 pm and were not accepting additional guests for the evening. Now to get to the part about why I still gave 4 stars despite the difficulty in getting in. Where I'm from, the nearest Joe's is still too far away to visit very often. I have to settle for something closer (like R.L.) where the crab legs are over cooked and hollow legs are the norm.....The reason I was willing to put up with all the hassle? Joe's has the best crab legs. Always. The King Crab legs I had here were the best since.....the last time I ate at Joe's. Even in a spot like Branson which is the furthest possible place from the nearest ocean. The lake doesn't count. There are no...