Crawfish House — Restaurant in Renton

First of all, I must admit that writing a negative review is not something I enjoy, especially when I kind of know the staff and owner. However, as a level 9 reviewer, honesty is paramount. Most of the time I had a great time at the West Seattle Crawfish location, so when I heard about their grand opening in Renton, I was eager to show my support, despite both locations being out of my way from the Leschi/CD areas where I reside.

I visited the new location today around 2:30 pm, a time when it wasn't too busy. The staff was friendly, but unfortunately, the service was quite slow. It took a considerable amount of time for our food to arrive, and to make matters worse, they forgot to place my clam order. Eventually, I had to cancel it.

In terms of food quality, I was disappointed. The dishes didn't taste fresh and some seemed overcooked. The sauce lacked the rich thickness and garlic flavor that I had come to love at their West Seattle location. It was watery and didn't meet my expectations.

On a positive note, I must commend the owner for the design and remodeling of the place. The new location is spacious, with high ceilings and a pleasant open-air atmosphere. They have both indoor and outdoor seating options, and the bar area is sleek. I appreciated the presence of a hand-washing station, which is a nice touch.

I had initially considered suggesting that my niece apply for a job at this establishment, thinking it could be a fun opportunity for her. However, my experience today has made me change my mind. The environment here does not appear to be conducive or suitable for her because I couldn't help but notice the crowd at this place is not family-friendly. It gave off an unsettling vibe.

Lastly, I found the prices to be steep considering the location. Given these factors, the overall rating my two companions and I agreed upon for this establishment...

13 of us went to welcome our dear friends’ sister and kids visiting from Vietnam. Place is clean and spacious but probably busy around dinner. Think to reserve in advance if dining with a big group. You can also just walk right in and wait to be seated they have provided waiting area for that.

Food is really good, we ordered crawfish, king crab, snow crab, clams, mushrooms and for the kiddos, additional orders of sweet potato fries, fried rice, also ordered some breads. We had both the regular garlic butter sauce and the spicy one. Both are really good. They will provide boxes of gloves different sizes and strong pair of scissors to cut through crab shells. Also rolls of paper towels and plastic bibs.

The sodas are refillable but since it was pretty busy the crew weren’t able to check on us. They are pretty pleasant but additional order for breads didn’t got served in time with another round of lbs of crabs and instead of apologizing we were reprimanded that we could have ordered it ahead of time.

Music is a little loud we can hardly heard each other. I’m 50 so probably I’m old and ambience music is a bit loud for my age. The place also have a bar area so going with a date and seated in a bar they have food appropriate for that too.

They also have TVs enough to get some entertainment while waiting for your orders to be served.

Not enough parking place unless you can carpool or do a street parking near...

We were wary of coming here due to the reviews during the grand opening. However, we saw several reviews later of improvement and decided to try it out. Upon entering, we were greeted by a very friendly and welcoming hostess. Our server was exceptional and quick with providing initial service and beverages.

The esthetic of the restaurant was very clean. Several flat screens to watch sports on. Floors and table were clean. Bar looked very open and easy to see from almost any angle. There was a ton of natural light shining in the restaurant. So far, everything seemed to be better than expected.

The food was somewhat subpar to almost disappointing. Upon initially opening the bag, you're greeted with a very familiar seafood boil smell of garlic and butter. The sauce is consistent with other places that we have tried, however the meats of our order disappointed us. The shrimp was very grainy and mushy which suggests that it may have spoiled prior to cooking. The sausage and corn were cold, (corn seemed frozen) so we put the remaining sausage and corn at the bottom of the sauce to warm it up a bit.The crawfish that we ordered did save the meal somewhat but still disappointed.

Overall experience: Come for the vibes, hopefully you'll have better luck...