Joe's Crab Shack — Restaurant in Jacksonville Beach

I get there at 7:30, we're greeted by the host who asks if we want to sit inside or outside, it was an awesome night so we sat outside. We pass by this blonde haired waitress on our way outside who I noticed looked over at us while being lead to the patio. We sit outside for nearly 10 minutes without being greeted by anyone, not even the other waitress outside (black chick with bright red hair) who knew we hadn't been greeted yet.

I finally go inside and wait til I find an employee not hiding in the back of house. Fortunately I get the manager and I tell him we've been outside for an extended period of time without being greeted, he apologized and ended up being the one who served us throughout the rest of the evening. I thought that would ensure a good experience from that point on, nope!

We order calamari as an appetizer, I order the shrimp and crab pasta and my girlfriend ordered the coconut shrimp with fries and hush puppies. I ordered a coke that tasted bad, but I REALLY don't like to complain so I drink it. The guy serving us makes a remark that I drank it fast and he offered to get a refill, he comes back out with two cups (which I appreciated because I do drink a lot) it was Dr pepper because he said the coke had something wrong with it, no problem.

So now the food. The calamari comes out and it's been fried to death, far too fried to enjoy and it was battered lazily. A bunch of pieces were stuck together making large, over fried, somewhat burnt portions, but we eat it anyway cause we're hungry and we don't like to complain. Then when the food finally comes out after 18 or so minutes, not too bad of a wait time after the calamari. My entree, the noodles and shrimp were room temperature, the crab was cold, like, refrigerator cold and the garlic bread was like dry rocks. My girlfriend got her coconut shrimp without the plum sauce and without her hush puppies. He dropped off the food letting us know the hush puppies will be out in a few minutes, no problem. So we wait on the hush puppies, and we wait and we wait. Finally I go in and tell the waiter that my girlfriend didn't get her plum sauce and we're still waiting on the hush puppies. We also asked for lemons 3 separate times until we finally got them.

The plum sauce tasted off, my girlfriend said it tasted like it had dishwater in it, I tasted it and it did taste weird. We mentioned it to the server and he said it's supposed to taste that way, which I don't believe. The hush puppies finally come out and surprise, surprise, are over fried and are like small stones. We hate to complain so we try to enjoy our dinner. We get the check and a box for the rest of my girlfriends food. We box up the food and go inside with the check and wait a good amount of time while our server is talking to another table, finally he becomes available and I follow him to the back server station with my card. We then watch him running back and forth with my card to one POS then back to the original POS, then back to another POS, then back to the other. Finally he comes back with the paid slips and he drops my card without even noticing. I sign with his pen he's afraid I'll steal (which he somewhat jokingly said to me, even though I tipped him $12 cash on a $58 tab)

All in all, will never be going back and would not recommend this specific location to anyone.

Oh, also, that black chick waitress began serving the table behind us shortly before we left, so I know we were in her section, she just purposely didn't want to serve us for whatever reason.

My girl and I have both served tables for many years in our lives, so it is what it is. But we...

Really wanted to enjoy our meal here, especially with how expensive it was. I've not been this disappointed in a restaurant in a long time, if ever. I would give zero stars if I could. There were 4 of us at our table and the only person that ate their food ordered a chicken sandwich and fries. The table ordered several crab and shrimp dips and all 3 were extremely overseasoned. The mouth and throat were tingling and it felt as if we ate straight old bay seasoning from the bottle. All 3 dips went back mostly unfinished. One of the dips actually had crab shell in it on the first bite making the start to the experience pretty rough. When the meals came out, they brought the wrong meal for one person at the table. They quickly corrected it with the correct steam pot but with the wrong seasoning. They then told us that they had to take the other steam pot back or they would charge me ... after they messed up our dish, instead of apologizing, they threatened to charge me, which just seemed rediculous. No apology for the mix up, no acknowledgment of the mistake, nothing. If the bad experience had stopped here, we would have chalked it up to an off day but it only got worse. All 3 people who ordered seafood agreed that everything was very overcooked and very bland. The steam pots did not seem as though they were cooked in the seasoning, but more like they were steamed and then just boat loads of seasoning just tossed on top, only to be watered down from the steam. The shrimp, mussels, and lobster claws were like chewing rubber. The crab was also overcooked. One person ordered a shrimp platter and could not chew the shrimp at all and stated it was completely inedible. Most of the food that ordered was left untouched. It really says something that at a seafood place, the only things that were edible were the corn, potatoes, and the chicken sandwich that one person ordered. I wish the service was better than the food but it was also very subpar. The waitress was one of two bartenders on a seemingly slow day and was very unattentive to us and really seemed to have zero interest in the fact that so much food was send back untouched or unfinished. We also received no refills unless we asked for them. The bathrooms were disgusting - smelled of straight ammonia and appeared to have not been cleaned in some time. To make it even worse, two of our friends who ate seafood were sick after leaving. The seafood was incredibly overcooked so we are questioning whether they were serving bad seafood or not - for shrimp to be so chewy that they are literally inedible is very concerning. We were roughly a $200 table. For an experience like that, I wouldn't spend $10. Very, very disappointed and almost in shock at just how bad this experience was. We used to love this chain in other locations years back but after this we will likely...

We decided to get seafood for dinner and decided to give Joes crab shack a try again. We came in on a Tuesday night just after Christmas. it was not busy and there were maybe four to five tables out of perhaps thirty or so tables. We went ahed and ordered appetizers and we went ahead and put in our order for dinner and most of the table went with the Pirates platter and I decided to go with the East coast platter. It took nearly 30 minutes to get our appetizers, now I could understand if it was packed and they had dozens of order but, there were only 5 tables seated inside and I believe 1 outside. Our appetizers weren't anything super complicated, it was two orders of peel and eat shrimp one hot and one cold. Something that should've taken at most 15 minutes.

Roughly 30 minutes after getting our appetizers (now an hour at the restaurant) we started to get our food, one person at time. Our waiter told us he was the only waiter on tonight, which explains the very slow service, but still doesn't explain why it took so long to get food or appetizers.

Once we got our food, it seemed like if you get any breaded fish you will get more breading then fish as it had nearly one inch of breading on both sides of the fish fillet. Our dinners were not hot, but maybe at best a mild Luke warm, we figured that our food sat while our waiter was busy dealing with other tables. The only thing that was good was the seasoning on the fries. Refills on drinks were far and few between and at one point the waiter stopped to talk about pierced ears and advice on when he could change out his earrings and them not get infected to one of our table members. Honestly not a topic that should be brought up while people are trying to eat.

The only thing this place has going for itself is its location and the interior decor. The food is sub-par and the service is nearly non-existent.

My recommendation is if your looking for seafood, choose another option, as you won't get good...