Crab Cab Seafood Restaurant - Alexandria — Restaurant in Groveton

When you have memories of great food from a great place :) I remember finding Crab Cab a few years ago during an event in Washington, DC along Pennsylvania Ave. & 3rd St. NW in front of the Unites States Capitol. The owner was attentive, customer friendly and fast service as she raved about her food. She definitely didn't disappoint then and definitely up the game to another level. Driving south on US Route 1 (Richmond Highway) in Alexandria, Virginia you would find Crab Cab's iconic food truck near the restaurant. The best way to explain the location is walking out the front door of Crab Cab there's another iconic place, Krispy Kreme in front of the Crab Cab location. Imagine getting a 2 for 1 on the soon to open patio of Crab Cab. Walking into the restaurant filled with excitement to see my friend and give her a huge congratulations was a memorable moment. It's like seeing family and friends after the pandemic! She immediately invited me to take a seat at the bar, which was filled with everything you could imagine for happy hour or anytime. There's cocktails, mixed drinks, beer on tap and in the bottle. The recommendation to start your meal was the Seafood Egg Rolls that was excellent in presentation and taste. There was so much on the menu and instead of going from my usual Crab Cake. I decided on The Dominator - Jumbo Crab Cake Sandwich, Firecracker Shrimp Salad with loaded crab + Salmon Fries. Yes, this was the very best tasting dish I've had in a very long time. The choices are hard to pass as the JL Cannon Ball + Shrimp, Stuff Salmon, Grilled Shrimp and stuffed Shrimp all were calling my name. These are all entree's and they have the same in sandwich's that also were calling my name. For anyone not feeling seafood they have Homemade Chicken Tenders, Tacos with your choice of Chicken, Shrimp or Salmon. The menu has options for everyone including the Quesadillas lover's. Here are some of the sides to choose from to include a Signature Salad, Creamy Coleslaw, Asparagus, String Beans, Honey-Glazed Brussel Sprouts, and Garlic Mashed Potatoes. I could go on an on about the menu that includes Seafood Extras - Crab Fries, Seafood Trio Fries, Crab Bisque + Butter Roll and Crab + Shrimp Fritters. To top it off with Dessert - There's a Desert of the Day that varies daily. The restaurant is clean, well managed and owned with a staff that makes you feel like family. The offer sports on tv and promoting the patio which will open Spring 2023. for everyone who was a follower, fan, customer or just curious about Crab Cab. This place is fabulous and the same service, food and customer service you had with the food truck. This is amplified to another level and I see this becoming a go to for the area. The place should be highlighted for the growth in the American dream of being a business owner. Hard work pays off and to achieve such success and never change who you are is amazing! As I'm writing this review and as your reading this review. I'm planning my next visit to Crab Cab and enjoy the hospitality you deserve from an amazing owner and staff. although, I use to love chasing after the Crab Cab throughout the DMV. It's nice to know I finally know where Crab Cab will always be in the DMV. Did I say the food was...

Don’t come here. The customer service needs improvement. They brought out my friend and sister order first and i had to wait 15-30 minutes just to get my food. They brought out my side dish 10 minutes before the food even came, like at that point you could’ve just brought it out with the rest of my food. I ordered the skirt steak and waited all that time just for the steak to come literally burnt drenched in sauce as if it would help it taste better. I told the servers that it was burnt so they remade it, this time the steak tasted amazing, i ate 2 pieces of the steak and packed all the food i had left over bc atp i wasn’t even hungry anymore due to how long i had to wait. I get home and as im eating my food I see a thick lengthy strand of black hair in my steak. mind you i have blonde hair… The food was good but the wait and customer service and kitchen needs to do better.

UPDATE: I called the owner, instead of her trying to listen and understand she continuously tried to rebuttal with me and come up with reasons and excuses on as to why my food took so long to come. Once i explained to her that there was hair in my food she brought up the situation under the review my sister posted then asked if that was me, i told her no that it was my sisters then she was like well now there’s hair in your food then she’s going to say she’s confused. What do i have to make up stories for. I wasn’t even going to leave a review when they gave me burnt steak and took forever with food but the hair being in my food was my last straw. For all this i couldn’t went somewhere else and got the food i actually wanted with great customer service and food, Mind you when my food was taking forever to come i was sitting patiently i wasn’t rude nor nasty to them. It would have helped if our server gave us updates on what was going on with the food. I told her that there was hair in my food and she made it seem like i was lying about black hair being in my food. what do i have to lie about, why would i lie about black kinky hair being in my food. She tried to make it seem like well why didn’t i say anything there, obviously i didn’t see it until i got home because i barely ate the steak let alone my food because i was ready to go. She cared more about getting the reviews changed than what actually happened. She did offer for us to come back and that she wouldn’t take care of the whole bill but some items and explained that this isn’t how business normally operates and that she wanted us to get the food experience the strive to offer in hopes for us to delete or change our review around. She also proceeded to tell me that the reason why the food took so long is bc someone passed out in the kitchen and the ambulance was called. I’m a very understanding person and it’s unfortunate that someone in the kitchen passed out but as a customer how on earth am i supposed to know that.. If it caused that much stress on employees then they should’ve closed down...

This restaurant is unprofessional, from the ownership, down to the waitstaff. Do not waste your money here. The food is alright, but not worth the treatment I’ve received.

I visited this restaurant with a group of friends, and immediately noticed the weak air conditioning. I came about 10 minutes after the rest of my party had been seated, and they had their drinks. The server came to our table to ask for my drink order and if we were ready to order our food, but then she walked away before we could respond to her. She did this a few times. This was strange, but we gave her the benefit of the doubt that maybe they were understaffed. (Mind you, the restaurant had a few open tables and if you’ve been here, it’s already small to begin with) We were finally able to put in our orders. (They also charge $8 for LEMONADE, insane. It seemed like they might have used fresh fruit juice, but that was still a ridiculous markup)

About 5 minutes after we got our food, she asked us if we wanted any boxes, to which we said no, because we hadn’t even started eating yet. She then brought some boxes to our table anyways, like she was trying to signal to us to leave. Then, after we had been there for maybe 15 minutes more, she began clearing our plates and asked us how we wanted to pay, even though we had still been there for less than an hour and some people in our party were still eating. We had also just asked for water, so she knew we weren’t planning on leaving. To make matters worse, she even tried to take someone’s plate while there was still food on it. At this point, we felt very uncomfortable as we clearly weren’t wanted there. We split the check evenly and left with a very bad taste in our mouths.

About a week later, I noticed that my card had been charged incorrectly for more than what I put on the receipt. I tried calling the number attached to this location listed on their website multiple times, but no one responded and their voicemail was full. After a few days of trying, I was finally able to leave a voice mail. I then had to go back and forth with the apparent owner of the restaurant, Giselle, who said she was out of town and spoke very rudely to me on the phone and over text. She insisted that I text because she said her service was bad, but then continued to have an attitude over text. When I explained to her how poorly her server acted and how she had even overcharged my card, the best she could offer me was a refund of only the amount overcharged and a free cocktail. Mind you, I didn’t order any cocktails the first (and last) time I came there. And why would I want to come back after this terrible treatment? I tried to be patient with her as this is a Black owned business, and I wanted it to thrive, but not everyone should own a business if they don’t know how to deliver proper customer service and make customers feel heard, and like they should give the business another chance. I...