Crazy Alan's Swamp Shack — Restaurant in Kemah

I have been in the food industry for years and understand when people have bad days. But I had quite possibly the worst dining experience i’ve ever had today due to the service. My friend and I were served by Ryan O. on the second floor early this afternoon. He was very rude, impatient, lazy, locked to his phone and extremely fidgety to the point that we were both very uncomfortable. We ordered frozen drinks that were served to us completely melted. When he came by to pick up our empty appetizer plates, he just left them on the table directly next to us. Who wants to look at a dirty stack of plates the entire time? I told the server that we needed just one more minute to decide on the spice level we were sharing. He said “I can come back in 10 minutes.” I repeated myself by saying that we only needed one minute more (as it had already taken 30 minutes to get to this point) and he said yet again that he would “be back in 10.” Yet he came back in fifteen and the entire time he was gone, we watched him help his bigger table and oddly sat down AT their table to take orders. It took almost 45 to place our order since the time we arrived. When our order was taken, the server repeated it back to us. He read back an incorrect order and his notepad was close enough to see to confirm that he indeed wrote 1lb instead of 4lbs of crawfish. We politely corrected him and he scoffed, his facial expression got nasty, then he proceeded to snap at us by saying, “well sorry if you can’t read my handwriting.” Yet he rewrote the 1 to a 4 right in front of us and circled it? Even after insisting he got it correct the first time. At this point, we felt like we were being pranked. The service was so insufferable that it became comical. Our food finally came out and our server never came to ask how anything was. We were never given our trash bucket for crawfish and were missing our extra side sauces that we ordered. I gave up on waiting and got up after 10 minutes of waiting (still with no bucket) only to find him sitting on his phone in the server station. The cherry on top was that he came to the table while I had crawfish still in my hand and took the trash bucket away. Yes, I’ll repeat it again. He reached over my food to grab trash while I was eating. Hello??? Also, we were never even asked if we wanted another round of drinks? What happened to basic common serving courtesy? This was the most incompetent service I have received ANYWHERE. And the unfortunate part is that the crawfish was actually decent, but Ryan’s treatment left a bad taste in my mouth. This has completely reset my perspective on Swamp Shack. Don’t come here if you’re looking for good service. We just won’t be...

Baybrook Location Review It’s the constant changes these people make to specials they RUN!! I will never visit this place again especially the Baybrook location. I was treated sooooo bad on 6/30/25. Also they have a manager named Harmony who is very disrespectful. She actually SNATCHED my receipt out of my hand and balled it up and because she was upset because I had to correct her. She messed up the tickets for my party three different times and when I checked her she got upset. Sooo y’all allow MANAGERS to snatch things away from a paying customer. To top it off they sent out a text this morning about the crawfish special and had the nerve to put NO TO GO BOXES at the bottom of it. I ordered 4 lbs on 6/30 and may have eaten 3 lbs of it and wanted to take the last lbs or so home and she told me I could not have a to go box or if she did give me one I would have to pay $8.99 a lb. I had to let her know ummmmm ma’am I don’t think so. I get so tired of them changing rules at the last minute but the customers are not made aware until it’s time to pay or ask for a box.

The final straw was when she told me to shut my mouth because I was doing too much. Ummmm ma’am I will never let you or anyone else talk to me any kind of way. Sorry for her she had the wrong person.

My dollars are clearly not worthy of being spent here. Again this is the Baybrook location for ME that seems to always have issues.

I’ve written to these people a couple times about stuff that happens and they still don’t work on customer service issues at this location.

7/3. I received a response back and no I am not going to remove my review. I stated at the beginning I was speaking about the Baybrook location. If you want something changed about the location then you can edit it. I am not about to do all of that. Also it was added to the FLYER just yesterday after I complained about it soooo please don’t act as if it has always been there. This AGAIN is the second time something was added to the text after I had to bring an ISSUE to the Managers attention or called the Kemah location trying to get assistance about the Baybrook location. Not disgruntled just not going to be TREATED ANY KIND OF WAY! Consistency is KEY!

June 2 was the first issue when I came for the Shrimp Special and to grab a few crawfish and was told there would be no Shrimp Specials because of the Crawfish and as I stated that night it wasn’t places in the MASS text sent 6/2 buttttt on 6/8 after I complained you all then added it to the 6/8 text which is fine but try letting the customers know in advance of all your changes so we can order...

We had dinner last night at Crazy Alan’s. When we arrived at 6:30 PM, we were given an estimated wait time of 1 hour and 20 minutes, but we didn’t get seated until 8:30 PM—a full two-hour wait. There are benches outside where you can wait, listen to live music, and even order drinks (though we didn’t), but the wait was still too long.

Since it was our first time there, we didn’t know what to expect. We soon realized that it’s not the best spot for small children. However, the live music was a nice touch, and I appreciated that our table was upstairs, where there was air conditioning.

The restaurant doesn’t have much space for large groups. We were a party of nine, and it seemed like there were only about three tables upstairs that could accommodate us, which likely contributed to the long wait.

We came for the crawfish, but by the time we were seated, they had run out of live crawfish. Instead, I ordered the Best deal—the catfish and shrimp combo for about $23. It came with a side salad and gumbo, and I must say, it was very good. The gumbo was hands-down the best, and the salad was fresh and crispy. I loved the catfish and shrimp; the shrimp was a bit smaller than I prefer, but it was still good. The onion rings and fries were also solid. About five of us ordered the same meal, and my son-in-law got the snow crab. He was blown away by it and was already talking about coming back.

Our server was excellent—attentive and made sure we had everything we needed. Overall, the dining experience was good, and I’d definitely return with a smaller group. One thing I wish I had known beforehand is that you can join the waitlist on Yelp. When I called ahead to ask about reservations, they didn’t mention that, which would have been helpful.

The pricing was very fair for the quality and portion sizes. The only downside is that it’s not as clean as I’d like, but then again, it is a shack-style restaurant.

Overall,...