The Kickin’ Crab Mesquite — Restaurant in Mesquite

After the long wait, I really REALLY wanted to love this place. I had family visit from Austin and they wanted seafood. I recommended we try this place out because I love the garland location and the ambiance at this new location looked a tad bit better. So, it’s cute. Nothing crazy. I can’t for the life of me remember my servers name but I could tell he had little to no experience. He took our order and disappeared. First came the oysters.. I have never been to a seafood restaurant that didn’t carry crackers for their oysters. Had I known I wouldn’t have ordered a dozen of them. 2nd came the garlic noodles. WAYYYYY over cooked. And genuinely did not like them. 3rd you have to ask for butter because apparently it doesn’t come with your order. A little side eye, but meh whatever. I ordered anyway. Well the garlic butter looked like the garlic butter you get with your dominos pizza except it wasn’t as flavorful. Lacked flavor and appearance tbh. 4th when our boil bags were delivered our server told us that they unfortunately didn’t have anymore utensils to give us to help crack the crab legs because they were all being used but that he would get us some as soon as he could. Well we never got them. He was new, I could tell. We ordered fries that we never received. I usually don’t complain and pay for it all, I just learn never to order again. Buuuut after them not having crackers for the $25 oysters I ordered and didn’t eat, I had to Ask for the noodles to be taken off. The supervisor was visibly upset and truly did not want to take it off, but he did anyway. Although I appreciate his attempt to make things right, I feel if him and the staff had been a little more experienced, open to suggestions or quite frankly a little more engaging with the customers our outlook on this experience may have been a little different. Again, I wanted to love this place so bad. It’s by so much retail therapy. But I’ll be going back to juicys seafood and the kickin crab in garland instead. It really does take a village… to raise children and to grow a buisness. Make sure you pick a winning tribe!

Kindly, constructive...

Went in last Friday night around 8pm and found the place about moderately slow. More than half empty. Didn’t like the QR code menu instead of actually menus but I made do. They had draft beer but obviously don’t know how to serve a dressed beer since they brought me a tiny cup of table salt instead of rimming the cup with corse salt. We ordered a #2 boil bag that was 1.5lbs of snow crab and 2lbs shrimp. Picked our flavor and spice level and waited. In about 10 minutes they brought out our food. I proceeded to empty the bag out on the table cover and we dug in only to find the shrimp way over cooked and almost impossible to peel let alone eat. They didn’t provide us with any shell crackers for the crab legs so they were a struggle to get into. I finally got the attention of our server 6 minutes later and informed her that our food was over cooked and not edible. She responded with telling us she had to inform her manager. About 5 minutes later another employee came out to tell us they were remaking our shrimp. My girlfriend then commented that the food tasted precooked and reheated to which the employee who was the shift supervisor replied no everything is cooked fresh to order then rudely walked away. Our server finally came back over to ask if the crab was overcooked as well at which point I informed her that she hadn’t given us any crackers to break them open. She again informed us they were recooking new shrimp and then walked away to get the shell crackers. She returned with one pair of, so I guess she expected my girlfriend and I to just share them instead of bringing two crackers. Anyways I had had enough of this place and told them I would pay for my drinks but I wasn’t paying for the food. I ate 1 shrimp and my girlfriend ate 1shrimp. We tried to leave and got harassed by the waitresses who said they have to pay for the food if someone walks out. After 10 minutes of them threatened me with the police and arguing with me I finally left. Needless to say this place is not good and they don’t treat their employees well. The owners and management should be ashamed...

Went here for my girlfriend's birthday. She's been craving crab. Walking in, it wasn't so busy and we were seated quick. The seat we had, had this strange finishing cap that was wider than the backrest and was VERY uncomfortable. We asked to move and it was kind strange. The server didn't know so asked the manager, manager said it was a different "section" and would ask the server. We eventually moved without issue, but the interaction was weird.

It seemed like the staff were mostly very young and inexperienced, no fault on them. The music was very loud and made it hard to hear the server who spoke very quietly, as did the manager. It wasn't so loud I couldn't hear my girlfriend but jeeze learn to speak louder.

We had one margarita, and it was FINE. It was rather weak and tasted bland and that is FINE, but not find for 13 bucks. If it cost 6 dollars it would have been praise rather than annoyance.

The food came faster than I expected, I had a pasta bowl and she got a crab bag. Mine was rather mediocre. The shrimp had tails left on which is not that big of a deal I guess, just kind of annoying. I suppose you're expected to get your hands in the dish anyway.

On the other hand, they provided gloves and a bib and my girlfriend had a great time. She loved it. Crab was very good, she said it was cooked well and seasoned perfectly. Corn, potato, everything was above and beyond expectations and she spent some time getting it all down. Wonderful experience for her and I couldn't be happier.

I will say the wait staff came around asked if we needed anything the appropriate amount of times. It wasn't so much that it was annoying and not so little that we felt abandoned. They were also extremely nice, just inexperienced it seemed like.

The bill came and it was a little less than I expected, which is always welcomed. It came out to around $75 before tip, I kind of expected more around $100-125.

Overall I will probably return, but I'll definitely check out alternatives...