Crawdaddy's Grill and Raw Bar — Restaurant in Jensen Beach

This place is great, from the atmosphere, the live music, the wait staff and hostess. All phenomenal. However, I’d recommend the owner IMMEDIATELY let go of his “Executive Chef”, Ted Wells, who 100% thinks he is a better chef than he actually is, before he ruins this owner’s reputation. After waiting 45 minutes with the hostess, Keira who was an amazing young girl, we sat down with an even nicer server named Kelly on the patio. Ordered drinks, enjoyed the music and the crawfish and shrimp appetizers and the clam chowder. I then ordered the New Orleans picnic and my husband ordered a RARE NY Strip Steak. What arrived was a medium rare steak. My husband politely showed it to the server who also agreed that it was overcooked and took it back to the kitchen to be recooked. Next thing we know, some wannabe hot shot comes to the table, throws the entire plate down and proceeds to begin arguing with my husband that the steak IS rare and that he will “not be recooking a $37 steak and to eat it or leave”. insert a massive eye roll here to Ted the “chef” who thinks he’s cooking $80 steaks at The Gafford, Peter’s or Oak & Ember. After he continued yelling at my husband and now myself, I repeatedly asked for a manager and he began yelling that he’s the “executive chef” and there is nobody else, he’s the manager, blah blah blah. After multiple back and forths of this “man” yelling at me now OUTSIDE, that there is no other manager and that he wouldn’t be recooking our steak. I stood up, and tried to walk inside the restaurant where he blocked the door until I pushed past him. I then spoke to the female FOH manager inside that another server pointed me to and explained the situation. She basically shrugged her shoulders and stood there while the “Chef” continued to yell at us now in front of the entire restaurant INSIDE. My husband came in and again explained that the steak wasn’t rare and that the price wasn’t as big of a deal as the guy was making it, he would buy 4 steaks except the fact that he’s been yelling at his wife over his EGO! He then kicked us out AGAIN. So this time we left as he continued smirking, yelling and telling us “good luck”. Good luck to him because his $37 EGO just cost this restaurant a $170 minimum bill and multiple customers who were waiting for a table who heard and saw the altercation. As we left both our server and the hostess followed us out apologizing and embarrassed. The manager pointed us to the plaque on the wall and hostess gave us the owner’s facebook and email info and we tipped the server as she shouldn’t have to pay for the ego of another person. Needless to say, this was our first and last time, we will NEVER be back to this place. We typically go to Crabby’s for seafood and the Gafford for steak and should have never strayed. Future customers beware if your food is cooked wrong, you may be personally berated by Ted the...

We stopped in for dinner while we were on vacation and it was a great choice!

The restaurant is themed and inspired by the kind of foods and decorations that you would find in New Orleans. Hence the name of the restaurant. There definitely seemed to be a mix of locals and tourists in the restaurant tonight. The noise level would be considered a tad loud but I assume that was partly due to the live music that they had tonight. But the live band was great and had people up and dancing. Our waitress was on top of anything we needed. She was always on the move but never ignored a table she was covering.

As for the food, almost everything was great. We started with the Gorgonzola stuffed meatballs and they were delicious. The Gorgonzola cheese offered a sharper, more defined taste to enhance the beef in the meatballs. Bread was also brought to the table and it was clearly made in-house. It was fresh and warm and reminded me of homemade bread that a family member always used to make. I got the rum soaked grilled shrimp that came with green beans and mashed potatoes. The amount of shrimp on the plate was plentiful and far more than I'm used to getting. So that was a pleasant surprise. The shrimp were fresh and flavorful from the time spent soaking in rum and spices. The lime mango salsa they were served with was a perfect, sweet compliment. My aunt ordered the gumbo and the jambalaya. Both were incredibly flavorful and visually appealing. Like I mentioned previously, there was a downside to some of the food. My two cousins ordered the mac and cheese and barely touched it. I tasted it and realized that the cheese sauce had an egregious amount of fresh garlic in it. I definitely would recommend using less garlic in what's supposed to be a kid's dish. That would have been too much garlic for even an adult's meal.

For dessert, my cousins ordered the brownie ice cream sundae. They enjoyed it and finished them off pretty quickly. My aunt and I shared the chocolate banana bread pudding. It left a little to be desired to us. It looked and felt more like a small, dense cake that was banana and chocolate flavored. Maybe we're just used to a lighter, fluffier kind of bread pudding and it's just our preference. Or maybe it was just made a little off. Either way, it was an alright dessert choice.

Overall, this was a great choice. I'm happy we found this local gem. I always love stopping by local restaurants any time I'm on vacation. If you're in the Jensen Beach area, stop in and have a bite to eat. There's a good chance that you will love...

We stopped in for dinner last night and our experience was certainly NOT in line with most reviews here. For that reason, we will return at some point but not for a while. When we arrived, we noticed a couple other people standing outside by the hostess station. We asked the hostess if there was a wait. She replied hesitantly that they were having a 5 minute hold because the kitchen was backed up. I looked inside and noticed there were a number of empty tables. The same in the patio area. It was pretty cold outside, so I asked if we could at least be seated inside and order drinks. I don’t think she knew quite what to do with that, so we remained outside for a few more minutes. Final, we were seated inside and after a few minutes, were greeted by our server. She told us the kitchen was backed up and we told her we had already been alerted to the issue. We ordered drinks and appetizers and settled in. The drinks actually came fairly quickly and were good (margaritas). After about a half hour, our server asked if we wanted some bread. A few minutes later, she arrived with a sandwich roll on a wood cutting board. She said they were out of their homemade bread but hoped we might accept this roll. It was something at least. After another hour went by, and we noticed the party of four, that was seated after us, leave carrying leftovers in containers, we were done waiting. I wandered off to find our server. I finally found her way out back having a lively conversation with a large group at a table. I informed her of our decision to leave and asked her for our check so we could pay for our drinks. I returned to our table and a few minutes later a young guy approached with what appeared to be our food. I told him we didn’t want it and that I had already spoken to our server. The next few minutes was rather chaotic. Our server and the manager both showed up and the manager offered to box our food for us if we wanted it. I didn’t but my Wife did. My Wife wanted to not only pay for our drinks but also the food. The manager wouldn’t hear of it. She wasn’t going to allow us to pay for the food. After some back and forth, we agreed to take the food as well as take the manager up on her offer. Once we got home, we tried the food but it was very overcooked. Probably just an example of the chaos in the kitchen that night. The manager had told us that multiple employees had called out that night and in doing so had caused the chaotic scene we walked into. It really is a pretty place with a great menu. Hopefully, our next visit...