O Crab — Restaurant in Nampa

I was excited to see a Cajun Seafood place open up on this side of town so I went there with my family to check it out. We knew the place was new and that the wait could be long, but we got in easily, with no wait other than there was nobody at the door when we got there. Once seated, they sat us in the middle of the dining room, right next to another family. We wanted a booth, and there were many available, but we were told the booths were saved for bigger parties. The booths remained empty our whole time there. Minus one star!

I know the place is new but it took forever to get our drinks. I asked for a red sangria and a water. My husband had a voodoo lemonade and a Dr Pepper and our daughter had Sierra Mist. First came the sodas. After a long wait. A while later came the booze. My red sangria was not a sangria at all. It was just red wine with a slice of pineapple. I’m from Spain, the land of sangria, I think I could go in and teach them how to make real sangria, because that was disappointing. $11 drink, to the trash… now where’s my water??? I never got my water until mid meal, after asking for it 3 times.

We were served our appetizers: Paella and fried calamari. There were no plates to split the paella onto for 3 people, no utensils either. So we waited, and waited… and waited. Finally someone came by and we asked if we could have utensils. About 10 minutes later they brought us 2 forks. I guess one of us couldn’t eat?? Still no plates.

The fried calamari was good. It came with nothing and I asked for some lemon. They brought me a whole cup of lemons. Ok, that’s good.

The paella though.. this is where I was very disappointed. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m from Spain, and paella is one of our main dishes. This paella was not yellow, to begin with. It had eggs in it, soy say ce, raw onions…. It was NOT paella. It was fried rice at most. You really need to talk to your mandarin cooks and teach them to make paella. You didn’t even have the right ingredients in it!! Very, very disappointing! My husband is Asian, so we both agreed on that it was fried rice and not paella. Change your recipe or get it off the menu. You can’t be telling people that’s paella.

The rest of our meal was fine, although my daughters clam chowder took forever to come out and when it did, it was watery with no substance. We were never asked if we wanted refills on our drinks, eating spicy foods with nothing to drink is pretty bad.

So these are the reasons why we only gave it 2 stars. I loved the decor. The waitresses were friendly but not trained. The kitchen staff needs people who can speak English, because the waitress told us none spoke English and that’s why they had so many problems. My husband has worked in the restaurant industry in Las Vegas, and has opened a few restaurants. He recommends that you shut down, train your team during a week, and do a reopening. Because it’s clear that you were not ready for this opening. Get your dishes and drinks straight. Fix the paella and sangria. Sangria should be sweet, and have oranges and lemons in it, maybe apples even. But not pineapple on the side of the glass. The fruit goes inside the drink. Please fix...

Considering current events and a general lack of "available" workforce, I really wanted to be understanding in my review of this restaurant but all things considered (including post pandemic struggles), this place is NOT ready to be open.

On 7/23/21, we tried to visit O Crab. Because it is new, my wife and I figured there would be a wait and I called them to see if they offered reservations. The person who answered the phone did not provide his name and when I asked if they made reservations, his response was; "Well, we are pretty busy". Given they are new, I was already under that assumption thus prompting my action to try and make a reservation. The individual I spoke with did not sound interested in making a reservation, leading me to ask if the bar was open seating. I was told, "yes and I should be able to get sat quickly".

I arrived at O Crab with the aforementioned expectation of a decent seat time, where I would wait for my wife to meet me for dinner. I walked up to the host and asked to be seated in the bar, where I was told there were not any openings. Fine, I expected that. When I asked how long it would be, I was quoted 2 hours to sit at the bar. That seemed especially long since there was no less than eight empty tables within eyeshot of where I was standing. I asked how long the wait was for a table, of which I was given the same response. This is when things got very strange and set the stage for a very poor experience. I asked if I could sit at the bar, order a drink and wait for my table and my wife. The woman (who eventually identified herself as the owner) said the bar is not for eating and wanted me to join the 2 hour wait list. I then asked her how long it would be if I just wanted a drink at the bar.... and was given a quote of 30 minutes... I then asked her why would I join a 2 hour wait list to tell the host/hostess I wanted to sit at the bar she just quoted at 30 minutes. She said, "it was better to wait for a table." Looking around again and pointing out all the tables with vacancies, I asked by the wait was so long. It was at this point she said they were very understaffed and she did not believe her wait staff could handle 10 tables a person. She then went on to say if I didn't want to wait next time, I should make a reservation...something I already tried to do.

I have been involved in almost every aspect of the restaurant atmosphere and this is the worst experience I have ever had. I have never seen a restaurant open without adequate staff. In my experience, you are only setting yourself up for failure. I am not sure why this business bristles at the idea of eating at the bar...The staff did not come off as trained. The host staff lacked any phone etiquette. The "owner" exemplified her lack of experience in the restaurant business and customer service in general. I don't expect this place to remain open long under current ownership/management and for the time being, received more than enough of an experience to know not to go back. This place has A LOT of work to do to survive. For a better experience, check out Hook n' Reel, Lucky Fins, or...

The group that I came in with and I enjoy eating crab. O Crab is a “Cajun”/crab/seafood restaurant based in Nampa and it’s much closer to us than Hook n Reel and Joe’s Crab Shack. The wait was about 20 minutes which makes sense because it’s a newer restaurant in an area that doesn’t have as many Cajun restaurants. The host staff was awesome. We finally got to sit down and the first thing that I really noticed was the fact that the acoustics in the restaurant are off. It was hard to hear the person sitting across from me because she was drowned out by other table’s conversation/wait staff talking/things getting dropped/etc.

Our waitress seemed newer and kind of aloof. I had to repeat my order about three times for her… which may be due to acoustics or due to lack of experience. Either way, I just wanted some paella. Paella is one of my favorite dishes and LET ME TELL YOU - what I got was shrimp fried rice… I could go to Hong Kong down the street and get four times the amount of fried rice for $2 but I paid $7.50 for 1.5 cups of shrimp fried rice. Great. Anyway, about thirty minutes later, we got our food and they walked out with crab tins and the crab was inside plastic bags… I think the plastic bags were to keep the steam in? Maybe? It was pretty weird - do you eat your crab out of the bag? Do you dump it into the tin and cross your fingers that your $50 dish doesn’t land in the laps of the table next to you? I don’t know. It was weird and felt oddly wasteful. Almost like O crab was more worried about plastic bags and paper tablecloths to reduce time on clean up and less worried about customer experience.

The environment is sub par but I’m sure you’re more worried about the food. You really can’t mess up sea food unless it’s cooked incorrectly or the seasonings you cook your seafood in is made incorrectly. We ordered spicy “Original Cajun” and their spicy house blend. The house blend tasted like kind of spicy ketchup? It wasn’t spicy enough to be considered a hot sauce kind of taste and wasn’t bland enough to be called ketchup - either way, it wasn’t great. And usually when you order food you don’t really like at a restaurant, water is your saving grace. Well my water was gone by the time I realized my paella was shrimp fried rice. Our waters weren’t filled ONCE our entire visit. Rule one of waiting tables: if you mess everything up, at least fill the waters. This waitress walked past us several times with her eyes glued to her waitress iPad thing…

In conclusion, you could feed four or five people at Joe’s Crab Shack for the price you’d pay for two people at O Crab. It’s worth driving down to Hook n Reel or Joe’s Crab Shack if you’re in Nampa and the only reason I’d ever want to go back is because they actually have a great bartender out of all things. Really disappointed because we were really hoping to have a “crab place”...