Shaking Crab — Restaurant in New London

(Edit to owner response) the restaurant was dead, I have been to many bubble tea places and bubble tea honestly doesn’t take that long to make even when busy. The waiter himself apologized to the family for the wait time and the man even made a joke and said “I thought you went out the back”. I appreciate your response to begin with but the biggest issue was the food itself and the the fact that my son developed a stomach ache and my boyfriend was so upset about the food that he lost his appetite. The family next to me wasn’t happy either. We had to ask for plates and the family next to me had to ask for napkins. Also when I complained we didn’t eat all the food and I never claimed to want all my money but your restaurants response was “I’ll let them know” and I don’t appreciate the sarcasm

I’m sorry for the long review but I believe that you’ll appreciate the details. I am puzzled about how this place has so many positive reviews. I urge everyone to take the negative reviews more seriously. My family of 5 were searching online for a seafood place on the way to mystic. (Mystic couldn’t take us due to us not making reservations in advance). The menu online brought us here and looked appealing, easy and straightforward but upon arriving we were met with almost 5 different menus and cultures of food (Spanish, Indian, Italian, you name it) and that is always a huge red flag. The restaurant was dead at 5:00 pm. The music was low and eventually went away to the point that you can hear everything going on in the back of the restaurant and every conversation. Bathroom stalls didn’t lock, had holes on the walls and very sticky floors. The restaurant was colder inside than it was outside. I decided to trust the reviews anyway and stayed with my family because we drove so far. We ordered and split two Hard Rock Boils. The crab was so over cooked that it didn’t come out of the shell and was basically inedible. The lobster was tough to chew and the mussels were rubbery. I shared my experience with the servers and they never offered a resolution or compensation. I paid $180 for my food and a drink and I am so mad at myself for not trusting my instincts. Despite it being very dead, the table next to me waited almost 20 minutes just for their drinks and staff were just chit chatting about and seemed to be passive. After we were done, I had to walk up to someone to ask for the check. Please spend your hard-earned money elsewhere. I am still hungry and my toddler is complaining about a stomach ache and I feel awful...

I have to start with the food and work backwards. The food was so fresh, juicy and flavorful. I had the lunch miniboil combo #3, King's combo: 1 Alaskan king crab leg, 1 Snow crab cluster, 1 Dungeness crab cluster. I hand the envie sauce cilantro, lime, lemon, garlic and butter not hot. I had a half pound of mussels on the side. My husband had the same combo but with shaking seoul sauce medium hot. He had a half pound shrimp and sausage on the side. I had a couple mussels that had grit, but the rest were grit free. The shrimp were huge. We also ordered the loaded noodles they had sausage chunks and large shrimp (slightly smaller than the boil shrimp). We each only had one bite of the noodles and took the rest of them home along with some of the sausage and shrimp. The crab legs were so good. The envie sauce was so delicious the cilantro was fresh whole bunches. The boil is supposed to come with corn and potato, but you will not see them in my pictures because the cook forgot them. We did not tell our waitress because we had the extra seafood sides and were stuffed, but I am confident that had we notified them they would have rectified the oversight without any delay. Please keep in mind that my dining experience was during the "soft opening" the grand opening is on October 30 or 31. The decor is pleasant, not overdone and that was refreshing. The staff was very friendly and accommodating. Though my waitress was new to the occupation, she has what it takes to be an excellent waitress. Anything she did not know the answer to she did not make one up, she admitted she did not know and went to get the answer for us. The Shaking Crab will have a bar and sell alcohol, but at the time of my visit this was not operational yet. I believe the manager said their shipment was not in and was due to arrive sometime the week of the...

This was the worst experience I ever had at a restaurant. They had a server who started the day before serving a party of 14 ( I called at 12:30 to make this reservation for 5 pm as well so it wasn’t sprung in the moment) . I don’t blame her for the horrible service I blame the owner and management for not setting her up for SUCCESS. As I am a general manger to a restaurant I would never of done the things this restaurant allowed . It took 1.5 hours to get just our drinks( you ever have a warm lemonade that has ice, we’ll you’ll get that here) , 45 mins to get our appetizer which half were missing but at this point I remand calm and understanding, after another hour food begins to come out freezing cold.. you ever have a boil and your crab legs and shrimp are cold and oily) at this point the manager/owner is taken to the SIDE to be told how our experience is going ! He said he would take care of it … well we thought he never return to the table to change the experience around…. But nope.. after another hour with unhappy food and an experience we ask for boxes with uneaten food be cause we are ready to go.. but I then express that I would only pay for the food that was eaten and the alcoholic drink and not pay for the food the was boxed up on the table and told everyone to leave it on the table as they did! The owner left it the NEW server to handle our bill and not even apologize nor cared to. All of the other servers in the restaurant agreed they would of done the same. Never in the 15 years I’ve been in food industry have ever been subjected to this type of experience (4 unwanted hours for dinner). We should of knew it was going to be bad when there was only four other tables in the restaurant and this was happening . DONT...