The Crab Pad — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

Leaving this review right as I leave. Service was good our waitress was really nice and personable. The flavor of the Cajun was delicious however the overall execution was quite disappointing. Myself and two others all ordered shrimp in our order in which none of the shrimp was cleaned out so half the time we spent cleaning the shrimp of its inside remnants. Two of us both got snow crab in which the crab was overcooked The outside of the shell was so overcooked that you could not crack the shell open half the time was spent fighting with the crab to just try to peel any ounce of shell that you could to even access the meat but even with that it was so over cooked that the meat stuck to the inside of the shell. Is your restaurant I also ordered clams inside of the meat prepared well with the occasion sauce however the disappointing part was almost every other bite had bits and pieces of shells let's say about 25% of the clams were somehow cracked in or shattered not sure how this even happens in the process of cooking but definitely got a couple bitefuls in which hard crunches were involved. Leslie most disappointing part was the lobster tail. I mentioned at least the legs being torn off but I should have known that it would be in completely enclosed without the upper body. But the worst part was after also fighting with the lobster because that two was overcooked eating the lobster left is very poor aftertaste almost as if they cleaned it with some sort of soap and I had a soapy after taste. But instead of assuming that they cleaned it with soap I let the waitress know that I potentially received a bad lobster. I had two other people at my party tried the lobster which they all agreed that tasted pretty poor in which they brought it to the back to get it tasted by the cook. and of course the cook is not going to acknowledge when something is bad so they claim that the lobster tastes perfectly fine to him, which shows me he is probably inexperience or does not want to demonstrate accountability. The best the offered was half off the lobster ($7 off a $70 order) Which after eating at most 1/4 of the lobster because I offered a bite for others to taste seems sad. They even took the remaining lobster and threw it out, so it isn't like I kept it. After spending $150 on three people I decided to pay $25 in tip to the waitress which to me still seems like a decent amount because she was nice overall even though the food was just poor quality. The sad thing here is that many people have also experienced overcooked food in these reviews and instead of learning from this the restaurant just seems to apologize and continue having inexperienced cooks work in their kitchen I think they should take from the reviews and hire and ensure quality is done I don't think I would be returning to this place due to the fact that I don't want to end up paying $70 on seafood that's completely overcooked...

Yesterday me and my family decided to try the Crab Pad out after seeing a TikTok review & I must say that reviewer must’ve received complimentary food. So for Starters the location gives pop up shop vibes, it look like they just threw that spot together literally. The floors were sticky you could feel your shoes slightly sticking to the floor as you walked. There was one waitress and two servers and the Manager also helped out thankfully.

Now on to the food review I ordered the shrimp basket which came with a decent amount of fries, 5 Medium Shrimp and 2 sauces, it was cooked well however the shrimp lacked seasoning and did I mention that it only came with 5 medium shrimp ? mind blowing. One of my family members ordered a seafood boil bag the pound of black mussels was the portion of a 1/2 pound, her crab legs were the tiniest ones I’ve ever seen. It was like they were hand picked for a kids menu.

My final family member ordered the garlic noodles and boy were they sweet, definitely didn’t expect them to be sweet, she also ordered Crab Rangoon and the party wings and let’s just say that the crab Rangoon didn’t taste like it should have can’t really pin point the taste it almost taste like a Mac and cheese mixture and her chicken was mainly drumsticks with more fat then anything just completely gross. It’s BYOB so that’s cool. Our server started out okay but once we started to inform her about what we didn’t like she visibly appeared to be irritated with us.

The manager was called to our table she apologized, offered to replace the crab legs however my cousin declined. She also made adjustments to our bill. Even though I definitely don’t see myself returning. I do appreciate the manager’s kindness. I hope this review helps and I also hope your experience is...

Walked in this past Sunday night at 9:09pm to dine in with my sister (literally just 2 of us) and was told we couldn’t sit because they stopped seating. My sister asked if this is something they do every day and they told us yes, but we could order for take out. This seems very disingenuous because the restaurant wasn’t even full and posted closing hours say 10pm. I could see if we walked in at 9:30 or 9:45. It was barely past 9pm. As a long time server/bartender in this industry, to me it seemed like either they just wanted to close “on time” or thought we wouldn’t tip. Blocked their own blessing because I always tip 20+ percent because I know how this industry is. I understand it being Mother’s Day and having a busy shift but that doesn’t mean lie to your customers. Management either needs to look very closely at the practices of their employees or make yet ANOTHER sign to post on the door in addition to the ones about all sales being final, 10 percent “service charge”, needing an ID for pickup because of fraud, etc etc. They basically abandoned the front of house after 9p. Terrible service.

EDIT I forgot to mention this was our first experience with this place. We did end up ordering to go and had issues with that as well, ordered a lb of shrimp and an lb of crab to go and items were missing (potatoes, sausage, which was paid for) and the bags were absolutely not a lb (precooked or otherwise). The flavor in the sauce was good though and I’m sure with proper management and a staff that actually cares this place would do so much better. A spot like this needs a strong front of house service team and a strong expo and neither were present. If I do some back it’ll be after some changes are made...