CRAVE Food & Drink Woodbury — Restaurant in Woodbury

My husband and I made reservations for 4pm on Saturday, Jan 18th, to end our day of errands.

We've been to the Roseville location and had a wonderful experience, so we gave this location a whirl.

We arrived early as we were near by but we were still having to wait because they were in the middle of shift change and clearing a table near the door was too much for the hostess to do herself before being told by the manager to 'just do it'.

We were sat at 4:10 and it took more than 5 minutes for our server to come to our table to collect our drink orders. ( standard greeting time from being seated to a hello should be no more than 1 minute. And yes, we've both been on that side of the table.) Me- a glass of Whithaven, Hubby the Crave Old Fashioned that had Cinnamon in it.

Both were fine. Kind of difficult to mess up the pour of a glass of wine and a standard cocktail every bartender to know off the bat.

We both ordered the Walleye, "$38.00 per plate, parmesan cornmeal crust, mashed potatoes, roasted heirloom carrots, lemon beurre blanc sacuse withfried capers" Mind you the sauce is a simple sauce to create.

The name means "white butter," and the recipe relies on the butter to create the silky texture and yellow color, while the lemon juice, white wine, shallots, and crème fraîche create a slightly tangy flavor. What was on our plate was a watery, overly lemon non sauce and seriously missed the mark with no possible redemption and in no way could be called a sauce. Ever part of it had separated completely.

Instead of a filet it was chunks of walleye that was seriously dry and burned. There were more black parts than golden parts, leaving no doubt the oil was way too hot.

The potatoes were absolutely tasteless. No seasoning what so ever, no butter to add to possible creamy potatoes, simple a rustic mashed potatoe. Nothing more.

The carrots...goodness, all had grill marks, some were cooked just fine others were completely raw, some warm, some hot, some cold. No consistency at all.

When our waiter came to check on us , we had push our meals aside and simply told him "this was not it" and he asked what we didn't like and I explained the same as above.

He apologized about the fish being dry, stating that happens when it's deep fried. UM...WHAT!?

The menu states it's pan fried, but I'm being told it's deep fried!? There is a major difference between the 2!

Again I expressed our displeasure and he said ok, I'll be back and within moments the manager was table side asking the same questions.

We again explained our displeasure with the fish and she said, "it's a new item on our menu and we're trying to get it worked out."

Oh goodness...you're still trying to work it out!? Your research is still on going when I read reviews that it's been on the menu for a good while? It's not good to fib you know.

We were offered a new meal or a dessert but because we have tiny tummies and get full way too soon, we weren't interested in another possible bad meal and politely declined. Why should we try again when our entire dinner was already so far off the mark?

The manager kindly removed the cost of both meals....99% of the meal was still on the plate, and we paid for our drinks and tipped our waiter well over 25%. After all, it's not his fault and he helped rectify the situation.

Needless to say, don't oder the walleye. It's dry, flavorless, and the oil is too hot that it's cooked in, deep fried or not.

We might give this location another shot however it want be...

Edit: it's been a year and I've gotten nothing. The food they gave me was literally inedible and I got nothing else, much less a refund.

Original: I never got my food. I never got my money or any type of compensation. I never got the companies multiple "I'm sorry" gift cards. And no one is doing anything about it. Don't go here. Ever.

My friends and I got take out from Crave because doordash didn't bother picking up our order. We waited almost 2 hours before I had to make a bunch of calls just to figure out what happened. I got a flat bread instead of the sandwich I ordered and the crab dip they gave us was literally half black and in one solid piece. The bread was also almost entirely burnt and rock-hard making it completely inedible. When I attempted to called them about it I sat on the phone with it ringing for a while then got hungup on before anyone ever answered because apparently it rang for too long and they don't have an answering machine. Then when someone finally answered I had to sit on hold waiting (again) for them to get a manager. Then they said they wanted me to come all the way back to do the refund before ever asking me if I payed with cash or card even though they later said they could have done a card refund. I don't live down the street but food doesn't turn black/magically change into other food on a 15+minute drive home and I paid with cash. The city is doing insane amounts of construction so it takes me significantly longer to get there than it does to get back, which meant I already had spent almost an hour ordering and driving so I really didn't want to do that (AGAIN)!!!! I've never been here before and I will NEVER EVER EVER EVER GO BACK. EVER. This cost more than (overpriced) RedLobster and was extremely lesser quality (and RedLobster sucks). Don't go to this Crave. I don't know if all Craves are like this, but don't go to this one. 😷😷😷

Update 1 week later: I was promised a gift card via mail in exchange for the refund because I'm NOT driving back out there. The giftcard came and its blank. I emailed the person who responded to this review and I can't even tell if I spoke to a real person or if it was some automated messaging system. They claimed they were sending me a lesser-quantity gift card via email and OF COURSE I never recieved that. They never asked me any questions or acknowledged what happened aside from the measly "I'm sorry" that was supposed to come with the email gift card. Below, she states word for word "I take this to heart." It's clear this is untrue otherwise this would have been fixed last week.

My friends and I went from "I'm not going to Crave in Woodbury because that location has issues" to "I'm not going to Crave anywhere EVER because they're clearly liars who charge you $15 for just a handful of inedible food and then refuse to take responsibility."

Update 2: I'm pretty certain this is a scammer emailing me and if it isn't, what kind of customer service do you have to have for people to think youre scamming them? Regardless, this business has problems and I would never spend...

This was an extremely subpar dining experience for the price point.

Problem 1: The food. I am not one to complain about food at restaurants, but the food here was bland, tasteless, and soggy. My entree was a pasta dish with chicken, mushrooms, and cream sauce. It was supposed to have "carmelized onions" but instead all it had were giant chunks of half-cooked, soggy yellow onion drowning in bland cream sauce. I am being entirely serious when I say this dish was 2/3 pasta and 1/3 soggy onion. Yet, it was somehow still tasteless. My partner's pulled pork sandwich was soggy to the point where she could not pick it up, and she said it also lacked flavor. The sushi roll we shared was mediocre. The only good thing was the French fries (and those were excellent). Overall, we could have made better food at home for free.

Problem 2: The service. Our waiter seemed to be in a rush (despite very few guests in the restaurant). I ordered 1 item and my partner ordered 2 items. While she was still ordering, the waiter walked away from the table. We were unsure whether he heard the second item. Turns out he did not. She did not get her entire order because he did not stick around long enough for her to place the entire order. So she had to re-place the order once the rest of the food came, causing her to continue waiting for her main dish. The waiter never came by and asked how the food was or if we needed anything. He also never came by to refill our water glasses, so by the time my partner's food finally came, she was also thirsty.

Problem 3: The facility. This restaurant was not clean. There was food all over the floor at the table next to our booth. We watched an employee clean and re-set the table. We were sure they would come back to clean up the floor, but this did not happen, at least not for the hour we were there. Also, the appetizer plates at our table had bits of food crusted on them. I opened my napkin (with silverware enclosed) and crumbs of food fell onto my lap. Never have I ever had someone else's crumbs fall out of a "clean" cloth napkin. This is a health hazard and immediately dampened both my and my partner's appetites. Lastly, there were no automatic push plates on the entrance doors to this restaurant. Someone with a wheelchair would have trouble getting in alone. Luckily I had my partner to open the door for me and my walker.

If only one of these things had been a problem (the food, the service, or the facility) it would not have bothered us enough to leave a review. I rarely leave reviews. However, we went out to lunch at CRAVE to treat ourselves despite being on a limited budget and were deeply disappointed across all three areas. My partner has had good experiences at another CRAVE location, and this was my first time at CRAVE. After this visit, we will sadly not be...