The Crab Shack — Restaurant in Folly Beach

Just had dinner with my wife and best friend. We are all locals. I haven’t eaten here in about 5 years, and thought we’d go back considering our first experience was pretty good. I can’t tell if we just had poorer taste in food back then or if this really has gotten worse. The atmosphere is average. I don’t care what a restaurant looks like, I just want the food to be high quality, taste good, and have great service. Three things that are common in eateries across the low country. Tonight’s dinner was abysmal. The table ordered hush puppies which were so greasy that when you squeezed them, oil would leak out from the sides. My wife ordered fries and a Caesar salad because she wasn’t very hungry. The fries were overdone and tough. The salad was meh. We also ordered the frozen lemonade cocktail which was meh for $10. I had the snow crab and shrimp boil. When I tell you nothing in the bucket had salt on it, I’m understating it. The entire bucket was bland. The crab legs were either old and frozen, or overcooked, because the shell was soft and made them difficult to eat. All of the shrimp still had the vein (poop tube). I was disgusted by this as nobody willingly eats the GI tract of shrimp. They are supposed to be removed during cleaning before cooking. I told my waitress about this and said “excuse me, I didn’t realize you guys serve the vein in the shrimp. Can I just get charged for the crabs, because I’m not going to eat the shrimp and never would have ordered them had I known”. She says “yeah we don’t take out the vein. We never have and no other restaurants around here do. We always serve them like that”. This statement made me feel insulted, as we are all locals and know exactly how almost all other establishments serve shrimp, cleaned and de-veined properly. The only other restaurant we know of that doesn’t is fleet landing. Needless to say, it made no sense for her to make a remark like that to 3 people who she wrongfully thought were ignorant tourists. Lastly, my friend ordered the flounder sandwich. The portion of fish was small, served with no sauce at all, so it was completely dry, a yellow/white looking tomato slice, and again, overdone and tough fries. The whole experience was just pathetic and overpriced, and it pains me to say that because I love supporting the locally owned businesses. Something needs to change. Over $100 in food and left...

I only write reviews when something stands out for being really good or really BAD.

Our first experience on 7/12/21 was great and the food was amazing. We got married on the beach and ate here after. We were excited to come back on our anniversary on 7/12/24.

This time the tea was good, the service sucked and we never ate.

The initial wait wasn't too bad, 30 minutes on a Friday evening, and the hosts were nice. We got the table ready text at ~7:50 and they sat us and another couple outside at the same time.

The waitress got our drink order (2 sweet teas) then walked away before I could tell her we were ready to order. Kinda rude, but it was busy so whatever. When she brought our drinks (at ~8) she walked away again as I was telling her we were ready to order.

She brought a drink from the bar to the other couple and walked past when I tried to get her attention. We saw her get drinks, bring them and take orders from other tables that got seated after us. She brought the other couples appetizer, walked past to the table behind us before coming back at 8:21. She sounded friendly with the large group behind me, but annoyed when she asked if we knew what we wanted yet.

My wife, admittedly frustrated, told her we'd been waiting 20 minutes and she said she had other tables to help. My wife was telling her that wasn't a good excuse when we watched her help them multiple times and ignore us - but the waitress cut her off and said if we're going to be rude she'll get someone else to help us and walked away. We left.

It probably took us ~10 minutes to walk to our car and pass the restaurant as we went home (3 hour drive, btw). Our teas were still on the table when we passed. I wonder how long it took for anyone to notice...

This was our second trip to The Crab Shack since we liked it so much on our first visit to Folly Beach. On our first trip we had the Crab Stuffed Flounder and Shacktacular Seafood Pasta. Perfection.

This time we both decided to go for the Fried Shrimp & Flounder Platter. Again, the seafood was delicious. However, the collards and red rice were inedible. The rice was dry, and if ruining collards was a crime, this would have been a felony. I am a regular salt user. I even use salt pork in my collards. These collards tasted like someone knocked a five pound bag of Morton's into the collard pot. I'm pretty sure we both hit our salt intake for the year in just the few bites we were able to get down. If we'd had a microwave in our hotel room, we would have asked to sub out those two culinary fails with something else. As it was, leftovers were not an option, so the shrimp and flounder portions were generous and filling enough for our needs.

If your selection includes those sides, switch them out with something else.

To the collard cook, put some salt pork (fatback) in your water, bring to boil, add collards. Cook. While the collards are cooking, fry up some of the fatback, drain the collards, pour over some of the grease, gently toss, and serve. Let the diners add more salt if they want it. It also tasted like coffee or molasses had been used as a seasoning. Since the broth was dark brown, I can only assume with my taste buds and eyes that is the case. I can also only assume the cook has never tasted how wonderful properly cooked collards are. Or they are a heavy smoker and can't taste anything unless it is heavily seasoned.

Change out your sides and you'll be fine.

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