Turtleheads Raw Bar — Restaurant in Joplin

Heard from locals that this was the place to go. Tried to get a reservation for a large party and we were unable too so we took the chance and went ahead and was able to split our party up. We were there for about 10 minutes before our waitress came to take our drink order. We went ahead and ordered our drinks, appetizer and food at the same time. Finally got our drinks. While waiting for our appetizers, two couples came in sat and waited to be attended too and after 15-30 minutes, both couples left. After an hour of being there, we still didn’t have our appetizer. Our waitress came by and apologized and blamed the kitchen. Now, our party is from a tourist town, we understand customer service and times being busy and what not. But another half hour/hour goes by and we still haven’t received any of our appetizers or dinner. We get our waitress to come over and she says she’ll go check. Kitchen brings out two of the three appetizers. Another 15 minutes before we get out third appetizer. I’d say another 15 before we get our food. Total of about 2 hours from the time we sat down to get our meal. Meals came out, cold, over cooked and over seasoned. Sent back my dish to have warmed up and still couldn’t eat due to over seasoning. No comp, no half off for our wait time and the “bar” staff/ bounce or whatever he called himself didn’t care one bit. Told us that he warned us wait for a table would be an hour and was able to get us in before that. We totally understand an hour wait for a table, heck we’ve waited that long before! But over two hours to get your food after being seated and barely seeing your waitress or excuses being made is absolutely ridiculous. Will not be...

Saturday night. We were there early-ish 6:30 - before the dinner rush. The patio area was already busy. Wife and I sat in the dining room. The server was friendly and helpful. The only saving grace here is the food was pretty delicious. I ordered a shrimp boil. Wife ordered the crab legs boil and we ordered a dozen raw oysters. about five minutes elapsed and the server came and told us the kitchen was backed up and it was going to be a while. That's fine... it happens... 10 minutes later, the server appeared and told my wife they were out of crab legs. They had all-you-can-eat on Wednesday and sold out then. (You didn't order more?) She ordered a KC strip. 10 minutes later, the server came back and told her they were out of KC strip so she ordered a sirloin strip. About 20 minutes after this - 45 minutes after we ordered, he showed up with the oysters. They were cold, fresh and delicious. About 10 minutes later, our food arrived. Wife's sirloin was perfection... probably one of the best restaurant sirloins I've ever tasted. My boil was pretty good. There was only one baby potato in it and that seemed a little chinsy since potatoes are pretty inexpensive, but there was a pound of shrimp and it was perfectly cooked. The owner checked on us once and apologized for the wait, but said nothing about the food shortage. Good management would have either knocked a little off the bill, or offered us a complimentary dessert, or something. I mean we waited for nearly an hour for our food. I'm not the guy who complains so he can get a free meal, so I never said anything to anyone about it. We'll be back because the food was so good and they probably just had...

So basically this was me and my fiancé’s first time going and we saw the reviews and we figured it would be really good. We had gotten the boil of the snow crab, crawfish, the boil you know. We were told it was seasoned it was lightly spicy. The service was good don’t get me wrong! The thing is the food. She brought it out and it looked amazing. But the smell was odd it kinda smelt like the pot hadn’t been clean in a while. Idk what was going on with the smell but it was odd. Secondly I love crawfish so much. When I went to go and open one with the tail first I noticed that it was basically Shriveled up. There was barley any meat at all and no flavor. The snow crab was okay but it just had that awful smell on it. My fiancé ate the oysters and he said that it also had that weird smell on it. Everything was kinda over cooked and not seasoned well. We kept trying to see what methods would work to give it more flavor by putting some of the hot sauce on the potatoes and they were eh, then the corn too. It was kinda hard and no flavor. All of it was just bland and we were expecting more. It had great service like I said before lovely smiles and it seemed like a wonderful place to just enjoy some time with friends. Just the food threw us off. I would like to say that we will try again but I don’t believe I will be spending my money there again. We payed 37 dollars which wasn’t too bad but I also do not believe it...