The Blue Crab Restaurant and Oyster Bar — Restaurant in New Orleans

I was so looking forward to this evening's dinner experience at approximately 330p on Friday 4/25 at the blue crab, and the amazing review that would have most certainly followed. Unfortunately, that was not our experience.

To begin, after taking the elevator up to the restaurant, we walked up to the hostess stand where the young lady stood with her head down for about 20 seconds before looking up and asking us if we wanted to sit inside or outside. No hello or greeting of any type. No smile or friendliness. After telling her we would like to sit outside, she took another minute to make several marks and annotations on a piece of paper and a laminated seating chart. The system looked quite complicated to her. Again, all of this occur without another word or friendliness.... Just making her marks on the paper and laminated sheet as we stood there looking at each other, wondering what was going on.

My wife and I then followed her out to the back seating area, where she took us to a corner in the back of the deck. When we asked to sit by the railing with a view of the marina, she informed us that parties of two were not allowed to sit at the larger tables. This seems like a reasonable policy if there where other parties waiting, but there were four open tables along the railing and no one else waiting in line for a table. When I attempted to discuss this with her, she just told me that was the rule and she was unable to seat us there. I requested to speak with a manager as she sat us at a table farther back away from the railing.

Next, my wife and I chose this restaurant specifically and drove about 25 minutes in traffic to get there, because I was looking forward to some boiled crawfish and she was looking forward the fish tacos. This was one of the few restaurants that supposedly had both. However, after being seated, we attempted to place our order with the waitress, but were told that they didn't carry fish tacos. It's important to note that I pulled up on my phone their own website, which indicated on their own online menu, that they offer fish tacos. When I showed this to the waitress and asked her about it, she informed us that this causes a lot of problems and she apologizes, but they just don't carry fish tacos. She also told us about another restaurant that was her favorite for fish tacos. Got to wonder...Why not just delete that item off of their website online menu? As a business owner myself with a website, I know how easy it is to make edits to the online website content. According to the waitress, this discrepancy on their website has been occurring for some time and has still not been corrected.

It was at this point that we decided we would leave and take our business to a different restaurant down the street.

One last note... As we were getting up to leave, about 10 minutes after being seated, that hostess that I originally mentioned, had still not sent the manager to our table as requested, nor did she come back to let me know that the manager was busy and would be there shortly.

This was definitely not the experience we had hoped for.

Suggestions...

The hostess is the first experience customers have with your establishment. It might be helpful to put someone there who's actually friendly and welcoming. The young lady we encountered did not look happy to be there.

While not seating smaller parties at larger tables seems like a reasonable policy to me, if you have four open tables and nobody waiting, why not accommodate a customer's request to sit there, if it makes them happy.

If you have items on your website online menu, but you don't actually carry those items, perhaps you should edit your website, so people don't come expecting items that you don't actually serve.

Lastly, you may want to train your staff that if a customer asks to speak with a manager, that they either send the manager over to the table promptly or they come back to let the customer know that there will be a delay, but the manager will be there shortly.

Good luck. Probably...

The view and location are nice, it’s right on the lake and you get a peek of the lake from the outside balconies. Their website said they had live music on Sunday, December 11th, but when we went, it was dead and there were 3-4 other tables in the restaurant. The first time I came we got average service, but this last visit was awful. The server never came by to ask how we were doing, she forgot about our bottle of wine we had ordered until after we had already finished our appetizers. It was either a bar tender or another server that finally brought the wine out while our server was standing around chit chatting with the other servers. Then came our food, we ordered three daily mahi specials, it was supposed to be the catch of the day, but it had to have been frozen or it was the cooks first day or first time ever cooking fish. The fish was so dry, completely overdone and chewy. We ordered it blackened, which is a seasoning style and nowhere ever does it say to cook the moisture out of the fish completely. My friend that I was with ordered a salad and she tried the mahi and got up from the table and went and got the server to tell her that the fish was all way overdone and dried out. So they sent three daily specials back to the cook and said “they want it blackened but not over cooked.” The reason I believe it may have been frozen was they must have tried to microwave it before they cooked it or they literally let it sit on the grill while it thawed out. The second round of fish was worse than the first! It was super salty (they obviously didn’t know how to season “blackened” style) and even drier than the first time. It took about 20-30 minutes each time to prepare the fish, when cooking a piece of mahi is about 4 minutes per side, depending on the thickness. While we waited for the mahi to be cooked the second time, our server took all the sides off of the plates and left them on the table. So the expectation of her was that we should eat the sides cold, when the fish finally came back out again. It was awful. I sent my fish back but my parents were hungry and were not about to wait for a third meal to be cooked up overdone again. The manager apologized and said the cooks aren’t trained to cook any other way!! We only received a comp for one meal, which because this was the daily special, was $25 per plate. So we spent $75 on fish that might as well have been jerky soaked in salt for a week. The whole experience from the ambiance to the server to the manager and the food was all unforgettably horrendous. My friend lives nearby and usually takes out of town guests and other visitors here, but after that experience, she will never want to bring anyone to eat...

What just happened? Really hope to change this review when i can actually get some food here. Ended up going to this place around 730pm on a Friday for dinner because I heard good things about their crab and oysters. Upon arriving was told there would be an hour to an hour and a half wait. No problem, it wad Friday night and I was prepared to wait a while. Had some drinks at the bar and relaxed. Got paged about an hour and 15 minutes after waiting and our table was ready. GREAT. we were super hungry by now and ready to order immediately. Tried to order a dozen chargrilled oysters. "We are out of oysters". Tried to order a crab cake "sorry we are out of crab cakes". Ok so I'm at the blue CRAB and OYSTER bar but you can't serve oysters or crab to someone that arrived during prime dinner hours on a Friday night. OK cool. Settled for some other food. 30 minutes go by, then 45, then as it's closing in on 10pm I decided I had enough and asked to just pay for my drinks. The server was super friendly but obviously couldn't help that we had been there for over 2.5 hours and still didn't eat and on top of that spent close to $100 on drinks. I spend good money on drinks for the experience and to have a good meal not just to have drinks and go home. Maybe the manager could have came by to at least apologize and explain what the issue was. Maybe buy a round of the drinks and invite us back another time when it wasn't so busy. Anything other than what I got. A nice Friday night to a crab and oyster bar ended up with no oyster, no crab, and ultimately no food what so ever. Hope to be able to amend my review once I have a chance to actually eat something here like i said. But for now, don't go here on a weekend unless your prepared to wait for a long time only then to have a limited menu and and staff picking up chairs all around you making you feel rushed. Even when I was leaving I decided to use the restroom downstairs before I got in the car to drive around looking for more food and the bathrooms were locked. I asked the staff and they said that I had to go back upstairs to use the...