Turkey Leg Pit — Restaurant in Iowa City

My experience at the Iowa City Crab Attack location tonight began bad and spiraled downward from there. The location suffers from an identity crisis as it seems to be two different restaurant concepts with their own branding awkwardly merged into one (Turkey Leg seafood/bbq and Crab Attack seafood/sausage). The Crab Attack menu is confusing with al la carte prices mostly unlisted and an emphasis on "packs" that read more like to-go meals that add a half cob of corn and two new potatoes to the al la carte items. There for the crab without distraction, I ordered just 1 pound of Dungeness crab, fries, and a soda. The soda was without carbonation so I asked for a tap water instead, and was informed by the waitress that she'd do me the favor of not charging me for the soda (that she removed from the table). Cool? The $35 crab arrived a forever later, presented on a flimsy plastic to go tray (my companion received an actual ceramic plate with her Turkey Leg menu dish). My food was extremely poor. Extremely. The crab meat was devoid of taste, rubbery and grey, and the excessive amount of flavorless "Cajun" sauce lacked any taste besides salt. The meat was very dry and tough, likely not properly frozen and for too long (I'd not be surprised if re-frozen a time or two). I've gotten far better crab from Hy-Vee just down the road and half the price. The burned French fries that came in their own to go style paper tray were like eating crayons and a perfect accompaniment to the meal's symphony of failures. Other amazing aspects in random order: the meal included plastic gloves that might fit King Kong if he was a cafeteria server, wet naps do not exist in this establishment, the rest room had less than a Dixie cup of soap left in the only dispenser and a non-working hand dryer, the motif has dusty wine glasses and bottles randomly attached to the walls, the kitchen staff relied on iPhone alarms for their food prep but were too busy socializing and being loud and obnoxiously to get off their behinds to silence the alarms or otherwise attend to my table or the only other table of people not paid to be there. Look, I want Crab Attack Iowa City to win, especially since there are so few legitimate seafood venues, but it is so poorly executed that I'd wager all of my fingers and toes that this location will not be open 6 months from now - we were one of two tables on a Saturday night between 7:30 and 9:00 pm and absolutely nothing about the food product was redeeming. Avoid. Skip. Forget this place exists. Boil your own crab for half the price and...

Where do I even begin! We were really looking forward to going here. When we walked in all staff was sitting behind the bar and took them several minutes to greet us. Once we were sat we were shocked to be the only customers in there. We ordered the pack 6. We are Cajun food lovers. Only reason we wanted to go was because they showed they had crawfish. Got there and told us otherwise. So we settled for pack 6 with the Cajun sauce. With us being the only ones there l, it took over an hour to receive our food and on top of that it came with no Cajun sauce just butter and garlic which quite literally had no flavor which is insane for a garlic butter. So we asked our waitress about the Cajun sauce that was suppose to be on it and she said she had to go have them put it on the side. Mind you that took another 20 mins to even get that, which by that time the food was cold. The potatoes were slimy and over cooked, corn also severely over cooked and super shriveled up. Came with literally 6 piece of shrimp and the crab was also extremely over cooked to where several of the legs had nothing in them. Lastly, when we originally ordered was also ordered corn bread and that never came. And the bill was astronomically for the little plate we received that wasn’t even done correctly. There was no apology, no good service to where we had to hunt her down to even get drinks refilled and our bill to be paid. It’s such a shame because it does have a beautiful set up. Extremely...

TL;DR: Nothing about this was good. Avoid at all costs.

I'm not going to spend too much time reliving the most terrible dining experience I've ever had in Iowa City in my 25 years of residence so I'll bullet point this for both my sanity and the reader:

there was no sign that the inside door was not an entrance - even though there is a blinking OPEN sign next to it. the menu was incomprehensible and the waitress made minimal attempt to decipher it for us. both of our soft drinks were served with zero carbonation we waited over a half hour for food (even though there was only one other table seated) my husband was served $35 worth of freezer burned crab on a plastic plate with oversized gloves and NO wet wipes (how is CRAB in your literal name and you have no wet wipes??) the sauces were salty with zero flavor and a coating of coagulated grease on top the restrooms were filthy the only other patrons in the restaurant were loud for no reason, making a terrible dining experience even worse

Never again and I doubt we'll ever return to the CR location....