I decided to hang out with some friends and we were having some trouble deciding on a restaurant. While driving around, we noted how whenever we went to Yogurtland, we would see the places nearby but never actually ate at any of them. Incidentally, one friend happened to try Crab Hut once, and told us about how you peel your crab and stuff and that it was pretty fun, so we headed there.

Despite being a Friday night group of 5, we got a table immediately (fortunately we had a table of 6, not a table for 4 like the previous reviewer got =( ). There are about 8-10 things on the menu that you actually crack and open yourself; stuff like crab legs, shrimp, crawfish, dungeness crab, etc…) I was feeling pretty darn hungry, so I got a whole dungeness crab and some gumbo (shrimp and crawfish in tomato base). You get the choice of 5 different sauces for your meal to be cooked in, though I went with the “full house,” which is a combination of 3 of their sauces.

Anyways, eating the meal is completely different than a normal restaurant. They give you a bag with your crustacean/seafood cooked in your sauce of choice, and you open it up and peel it. You throw the shell anywhere you want. They also give you a bib to wear, and roll of paper towels to maintain a respectable level of cleanliness. It was pretty fun to open that up, and the more people you have, the higher chance that some crab will end up flying into people’s faces, which is always a good time. The price for my whole dungeness crab was a little bit expensive (more than I thought was advertised, but whatever) and it was a lot of work (even if fun), so it gets 4 stars. I wouldn’t suggest this place if you were eating alone =P.

By the way, if its your bday (or close to it, as my friends justified), you get a funky crab hat to wear.

My brother and I used to be big fans of it since it was so much fun and wanted to take my parents there last Friday for father’s day. We got there and they asked us how many – we said 5, then another group of people came in a little after us and they had a group of 6. The hostess offered us a table for 4 – which was tiny. I saw a larger table and asked about it and she said we needed at least 6 people. Five isn’t too off from six seeing that it was 2 women and 3 big men (my boyfriend is 6’3" – 250 lbs, he can take up the whole table himself)!! Basically, they were trying to get us to take the table for four so they could seat the people behind us in the larger table which is unfair because eating at Crab Hut is already crowded and messy enough – realistically a table for 4 would only comfortably fit 2 or 3. A party of 5 is not much different from a party of 6. I pointed this out and the hostess just kind of fumbled around for an answer and told us we could wait for a “table of five” to open up. They only had tables for 4 and larger tables (which were two tables of 4 put together) – so what exactly were we expected to wait for? A table of two tables put together to open up? Exactly what was already available?? I really think they were trying to impress the group of 6 behind us simply because they were caucasian (and this is a Vietnamese ran restaurant, I’m Vietnamese so I know how this is) – to be blunt, and I really can’t stand racist service especially from asian restaurants who tend to do this. I’m very big on good customer service – I’d rather have mediocre food and fantastic service than poor service and delicious food. We came first, there was a big enough table – we should have been seated first. If it were a group of 2 behind us , I can understand seating them first IF there were no tables available for a group of 5. Being that there was and a group of 5 and 6 can clearly sit at the same sized table – this was rude and unnecessary of them. So like me, my Dad was pretty furious too and said “forget it, we’ll go somewhere better” – and we all walked out. What a great Father’s Day right? We ended up going to CrawDaddies across the street which actually tasted better anyway! Needless to say, we are DONE with Crab Hut.