Angry Crab Shack — Restaurant in Mesa

This place is MIND BLOWING. BUT wear clothes that you can get dirty!! You order from your choice of seafood/shell fish/crab. THEN you order a sauce you want it in. You choose from Cajun, lemon and peper, and a garlic butter sauce. Or you can get it plain or all three sauces together, which is what we chose. Then you choose your spice level... mmm! It comes out in sealed plastic bags in a bucket. The HUGE ABUNDANCE of sauce gets cooked into the crab legs, shrimp, craw fish. They are drenched! I'm telling you, you haven't experienced crab legs until you've had them like this. It was the most magical dripping, perfectly cooked, fresh, spicy, crab and shrimp I have ever had in all my life. The combinations of the and sauces spice was so delicious that theres no way to replicate the recipe at home and you won't find them like this anywhere else. You can also have potatoes or corn on the cob added to the bag to cook in the sauce. The red potatoes had the sauce seeped in. They were soft and perfectly cooked. There's so much sauce in the bag that you do not need dipping butter or anything else. Just your bag of meat and tons of napkins. There is a roll of paper towels at every table and we needed practically the entire roll for six of us. So, the food was outstanding- absolutly perfect. But there are some things to know. First, It's a little cramped. The tables for six were a little too small. The buckets and food filled the table with no room to spare. You eat directly from the bag top the table and you throw your shells in the bucket. Second although they give you a bib and a roll of paper towels, it is impossible not to get dirty. Your hands get totally covered in the sauce. There is no way around it. You eat straight from your bag and there is tons of sauce covering everything. You're using your whole hands to dig through the bag and crack shells. I wasn't prepared for the gigantic mess it was going to make. I wasn't dressed accordingly. Im a very neat eater so I had a little trouble with my hands being 100% covered in dripping red saucy buttery juice. It did get on my clothes despite my fstidiousness. Reaching in a dripping wet bag and digging for food is what you need to be prepared for. They do have a communal sink set up in the dinning area thanfully. Lastly, the cost is A Lot! Snow Crab legs were around $20 per pound. They have seasonal market prices for everything. That cost includes ONLY your meat choice. Every single other thing has a cost. You pay a price for each potato or vegetable you want included. I thought they could throw in a potato but they don't. Every item is purchased seperately. On our table, the check was split so that four meals were on our bill and it was$ 175 with a tip. We also were not prepared for that. However it was really truely delicious. I'd go back again for a speciall ocation but I'd dress move appropriately and I'd not be shocked by the...

The most memorable part of our dining experience the other night, was being told they charge extra for the use of a Crab Leg Fork. Outside of that and the interesting seafood goers, their Trifecta seasoning was a tasty choice for our seafood boil which included Head Off Shrimp, Snow Crab Legs, Sausage, Red Potatoes, and Corn on the cob. Seafood is sold by the pound, sausage (1 link cut in 4 piece) and potatoes and corn cobs per each. You cannot mix your shrimp and crab legs together in one bag. They are done separately to ensure they are cooked correctly. We just combined ours when they came out.

The wait to be seated was about an hour. However, they did offer text messaging when you're table was ready and a real time update of updated wait time and number of parties ahead of you remaining to be seated.

The "hostess" was unable to give us her full attention as she had several male co-workers lingering around the podium where she was stationed. They may have been waiting to assist with seating. However, at that moment they were a distraction. That being said, our server came up relatively quickly and seated us. They have a mist system so we opted for outside seating which was great considering everyone else was more interested in sitting inside.

Update 11/22/22: My husband and I visited with our one year old. It was my son's first time in a restaurant. The staff were all warm and welcoming and gave him lots of attention. They had a high chair that transitioned into a car seat stand which was helpful since he was asleep when we first arrived. We visited at about 3:00p and it was perfect. The women's restroom has a changing table in the large stall, and that table is a decent size. My son didn't bang his head on anything like at say Target where the table is tiny. The food was great as always and our son enjoyed his macaroni and cheese and apple sauce from the kids menu. All in all it was a good outing...

Let me start with saying the food was delicious! However, the staff/atmosphere at the Surprise location was not good at all. Our son and his family took my husband and I out to celebrate our birthdays. We had been there before, and enjoyed it, no complaints. This time not so much. It wasn't busy at all, yet we were not greeted when we entered the building. I walked over to the hostess desk and said there would be 7 guests and gave her a name. She and everyone else had a depressed demeanor, as though they hated their jobs and were just fumbling their way through. Our order was taken, we got our drinks in a timely manner, but it went downhill fast from there. Our daughter in law ordered clam chowder as her entree, told our server she would have that and share our son's bag with him. Her soup was brought out before the appetizers, then our son and grandson got their bags. Then appetizers came out, and the rest of us sat and waited quite a while to get our bags. When our son asked when the others in our party would get their meals, the server replied with "what food?". Our son said "the other orders", and his reply was "well, that's just how it comes out" and walked away. We finally got the remainder of our meals long after the first ones were served. For the price, over $400 for our group, you would think the service would have been better, but the attitude was they just didn't care. A drink was spilled, and a couple employees noticed, but didn't bother to offer any assistance, we had to ask someone to get a mop. Generally, employees reflect the attitude of management, not sure what the problem was tonight, but I doubt we'll be back. Date of service 11/17/23 @ 5:30pm. PS: just a suggestion, when someone orders veggies in their bag, atleast give...