Captain Crab Seafood Restaurant - Sacramento — Restaurant in Sacramento

It’s tough to leave a negative review when the food was SO GOOD, but unfortunately, my family and I had a rough experience yesterday that we can’t overlook.

It was my brother’s birthday, and he was really craving seafood boil. My sister highly recommended this place, saying that every time she got takeout it was amazing. Funny enough, when she suggested it, I mentioned that my boyfriend had a less-than-ideal experience with the takeout service on a previous visit, but she said that it was probably just an off day. I checked the reviews on the way, and they were mostly positive, so I thought we’d be fine.

Well… it seems like yesterday was the off day. Here’s the breakdown:

Our party of 5 arrived around 4:45 pm, and the restaurant wasn’t very busy (pre-dinner rush on a Friday). We were seated immediately, and the host came to take our drink order. From the get-go, we noticed that he seemed a bit rushed and distracted. For example, my sister was the last to order a michelada, and before she could even finish her sentence to tell him what beer she wanted in it, he was already walking away. He came back 5 minutes later to drop off 2 sodas and ask her what beer, and at this point we also had questions about the menu. But again, he asked, she said “modelo, and -“ but as soon as he heard modelo he started walking away. 10 minutes go by and at this point 3 of us still don’t have our drinks, and finally another person comes out with our drinks, as well as 2 more sodas for my siblings. She wasn’t aware we had already received their sodas, but we just laughed it off and said we’d keep them as backup. We take the opportunity to try to ask her a question about the menu, but she cuts us off and says “your server will be right with you” and walks away.

My Shirley Temple tasted like carbonated water with a faint cherry hint (like their machine was out of syrup), and my sister’s michelada was “gross”. We were hoping that once our server arrived, we could mention this and ask for replacements.

So we kept waiting... and waiting. I checked my phone and it was 5:20 pm, over 30 minutes since we were seated, and we still hadn’t heard from our server. We watched as another family 2 tables down arrived, was greeted promptly, had their drink order taken, received their drinks, and got their food order in within 5 minutes. At that point, we decided to flag someone down, so I called out to their server to ask if she knew who our server was, and after some confusion, she confirmed that they had forgotten about us.

The server, Sarah (according to the receipt), came over after a bit of back-and-forth with the staff trying to find out who our server was. She was apologetic and immediately took charge of our table. She fixed our drinks and took our order, and from that point on, she was attentive and friendly. However, it still stung a little when, just after receiving our new drinks, we noticed that the other table —who had arrived way after us—had already received their food. Thankfully, the food came out quickly after that, and it was absolutely delicious—my little brother even joked that the food was worth the wait.

In the end, Sarah did everything she could to make it right, and even took a few drinks off our bill for the inconvenience. We tipped her, but honestly, not as generously as we would have under better circumstances. By the time we finished around 6:15 pm, the dinner rush had started, and the other family was long gone.

While the food was great, the service was a major letdown. My family agreed that, despite the delicious meal, we wouldn’t be returning based on this experience. I’ve shared this story with a few people, and they’ve said we should’ve left / shouldn’t have tipped at all, considering the service issues.

I want to thank Sarah for stepping up and trying to turn things around, but I do think a lot of the other staff members need more training. If things were different I would’ve loved to make this a regular spot, but unfortunately that won’t...

Dined in and got their full mixed sauce choosing Hot which compared to boiling crab most spiceiest option, it does not come close nor do I think their Extra Hot will compare or at least be any more spicer than boiling crabs. For the seafood boil I got Crawfish, Shrimp, black mussel, corn, potatoes, sausage, and snow crab legs. Overall the quality of each ingredient was good and basically the same quality as boiling crab,But I highly do not recommend the snow crab legs as it provides little to no meat, and it was over cooked therefore the meat inside was dried and stuck along the inside shell. I would also rather choose green mussel over black mussel due to similarity in taste and being bigger so therefore its more satisfying meat to sauce ratio and it wont get soggy and too salty like the black mussels. Overall though I would choose Boiling Crab over Captain Crab as the better winner due to Captain Crab being too salty as the food gets colder while eating where as boiling crab that wasn't that big of an issue, but they are both quite similar in taste and price.

Side items

☆Fried crawfish poboy: 4.5/5 very delicious and would recommend. Ingredients compliment eachother, you taste a bit of the crawfish, and the sauce is super good and not too overpowering.

☆Soft shell crab: 1.5/5 I do not recommend comes with a single small crab, quite plain, and it was super fishy when you get to the body part.

☆Fried calamari: 3.5/5 taste like a normal fried calamari, I dont remember if it had seasoning, but still a crunchy calamari.

☆Hush puppies: 1/5 not my cup of tea and I was mistaken it with Denny's pancake puppies which are super delicious, these are hush puppies which is savory and taste very wheaty and made of cornmeal. Im not sure what hush puppies are or made of but not something I would eat again or recommend.

☆Cajun fries: 3/5 crunchy French fries covered in Cajun seasons basically just like the name. It tasted mainly like cayenne powder on fries.

My total was around $260 to almost $300 for a family of 6 adults. Here is the current menu provided as of September 2025 To help anyone who stumbles...

Visited this place with a party of 20+ friends and family, even though we had a reservation scheduled for a set time, we had to wait around 20 minutes for us to be seated due to them not being prepared. Once seated our waitress Samantha was very friendly and Professional. They brought our food out in a timely fashion with one or two hiccups with the drinks and one of guests received their order wrong which took some time to be fixed. This place offers Bibs and gloves to be used for their signature Seafood boils, they fell short on providing enough gloves for everyone. As far as The atmosphere, I have mixed feelings about, the music played over the over the speakers was all of the best hip hop and R&B hits from the early 2000's which were not bad but somehow felt out of place for the place. food quality was ok, portions were About average. Prices are insane. We spent upwards of $1400 . We requested accommodations for a couple of birthday cakes to be shared amongst us (we brought the cakes) I.E, plates spoons etc. they brought out maybe 8-9 total, no where near enough for our group. Which made it hard for everybody in our group to enjoy a piece of cake. Which would not have been issue had they not said they could accommodate the plates when we called to make the reservation. In conclusion; I would recommend it if you are just grabbing dinner with a couple of friends or family. They definitely are not prepared to handle...