The Mad Crab

Smelled of cig. smoke & we should have left be we didn’t want to go look for another seafood place. The employees smoke right outside the front door w/​it open so it lingers in.
The crab dip was good but the waitress took forever to come back to our table.
Oh…and we were the only ones at the tables eating. Everyone else was only at the bar in the other room. This was on a Tues.
Fried food was very greasy. Hubby felt nauseous after eating his shrimp & pasta dish.
Guess we should have ordered crabs. But i’ll stick to Joe’s for the crab pot meal. Looks like a much better deal.
Don’t bother with this place. Over priced for frozen fried seafood for sure.

Don’t order crab soup. Two tiny pieces of crab. Corn was tasteless catfish was acceptable. Will not be going back. But should have guessed food would be sub par since it is not a true restaurant. But a pub

Just came back here a few weeks ago. This place always seems to be a hit or miss with food and service. This time we came the service was great. Our waitress was actually the bartender since the waitress serving the dining room was very busy during dinner rush. So first off we ordered an appetizer. I can’t remember the name exactly but it was basically some shrimp tossed in a spicy sauce. Another Unilocaler posted a picture of them which looked to be normal sized shrimp. When the waitress brought these shrimp out, they were salad shrimp! Literally the size of my pinky nail. Tossed in sauce. For about $ 10. Only for about 8 shrimp… literally so crazy. My husband ordered catfish and they cooked the wrong fish. Gave him tilapia instead. My meal came with hush puppies and I was not given them until I was finished eating and they were still raw on the inside. This place keeps going down hill. They are never busy and there’s a reason why! Don’t waste your time or money here.

They really really tried… unfortunately, when you call yourself a ‘seafood’ restaurant you should have seafood… no shrimp because it wasn’t delivered… and when you have an all you can eat buffet, you can’t tell the customers that they will be limited to the amount of crabs they order, and please don’t confess that it is going to take a while to get some items because they have to thaw it out before they can cook it because it is in a frozen block. We ordered the Captains Platter, and they were more than accommodating to substitute the ‘no shrimp’ for anything on the menu. Must admit that the crab legs were ¹⁰⁄₁₀. Be prepared to pay $$$

Their #1 crabs are the smallest I’ve ever had. Just plain disappointed. Staff is friendly though.

My sister and I visited this location on an early Saturday afternoon. We ordered the all you can eat special. The crab legs and shrimp were good. The crab legs were big and meaty. The fried items are all horrible. The crab cakes were deep fried, the outside was overcooked and the inside was undercooked. They should just broil them in the future. Hush puppies were cooked too hard and had a burnt taste to them. The «butterfly» shrimp? Just… No. They were surely purchased out of the frozen food section at the grocery store. Save your money and order just the crab legs.
Now the service… Our waitress was sweet but lacked short term memory. We’d have to ask for things multiple times before she would bring them and she’d always say that she forgot them.

So Saturday Night my brother was in town and wanted Crabs, we really didn’t feel like traveling, so we decided to give Mad Crab in Southpoint a try. Biggest mistake I’ve make in a while, especially when your spending $ 50 a person to eat.
Was we walked in, I noticed it was kind of slow for a Saturday Night (which was good for us because we had a party of 8), one of the servers approached us and asked how many people, we said 8, she walked around and came back and said they it would be about a 25 minute wait because they only have one table that could accommodate 8 and there was a party already seated there. We explained to her that we didn’t mind be split up and the tables right in front of us would be great, she look at us and said then sit down and wait. We brush that off and hoped that we would get another server; I don’t think anyone really wanted to serve us, but we waited and another table (2 top) came in and they were taken care of right away. Finally a server greeted our table. She started off very friendly, she was actually upset because the table we were sitting at was dirty and she proceeded to clean it. We had questions about the menu, we all wanted all you can eat for $ 47 which we thought included crabs and legs and shrimp and everything else they listed. Come to find out that crabs are only available when there is an abundance of them and tonight wasn’t the night. For a few of us it wasn’t a problem but others wanted crabs, so the server said we could order only a ½ dozen with our all you can eat order. So we told the group that we all would just order a ½ dozen and give them to the ones that wanted them, she said no, we couldn’t share (share? We all ordered all you can eat). We finally ordered at about 7:55 p.m. and we had another 2 join us at 8 p.m. and order. We all noticed that the server wasn’t as friendly any more, more rude to us, we weren’t sure why, but It was getting to me so I asked her if we had did something wrong and she asked why and I told her that she wasn’t very friendly.
We waited for 45 minutes to get our first order of food, 45 minutes and that was after two of us got up to look for the manager. We actually should have just walked out and went to Golden corral down the road, but I didn’t want to ruin the night. The manager explained (bluntly) that everyone came in at once, the steamers only held X amount of legs and they were doing their best getting the food out. What I don’t understand is we ordered other food that had nothing to do with the steamer and that was supposed to come out before the legs/​shrimp, but everything still took 45 minutes.
The only saving grace for the night (and the only reason they got 2 stars) is the Crab Legs and Shrimp were actually really good and the turnarounds for re-​orders were a lot faster. I actually did enjoy the food (minus the crab soup) as well as the others in my party, but for the amount you are paying the food isn’t the only thing that should be good, the service and atmosphere should match. I know they have been in business for a while and have other locations around town, but to stay in business they really need to work on the service, attitude of employee’s and turn around on food. I won’t waste my money at the Mad Crab anymore, I’ll travel an hour north or south to find great seafood the next time I want some.

Just ate a late lunch at Mad Crab. The place is clean and bright. We had snow crab legs and a Captains Platter. The crab legs were fresh and meaty. Not a drop of water came out of the legs when cracked open. The shells were hard not soft and over cooked as at some other crab places. The shrimp were huge! I am very impressed. Service was attentive and competent. I will definitely be back.

Don’t waste your time here! There are no redeeming features. Service? No. Food? No. Atmosphere? No.

I heard good reviews for the one on route 17 but I thought hey maybe it will be good still same name and all. Well I can’t speak for route 17 because We never been but this one on south point parkway SUCKED. The staff were not friendly they took FOREVER to bring the food, they kept forgetting orders and the food wasn’t all that good nor great. We got the all you can eat seafood special for 47.00 which online says 45.00.anyway don’t try the crab cakes the shrimp is a sea pack version you get in the store the steamed shrimp had no flavor and was watery, and the crab legs were so salty and dried out… eeeewwww try route 17 it might be better!

Service is terrible. The servers act like this is their first time on earth. Food isn’t that great and def overpriced. The only thing good about the place is the alcohol. Pretty hard to open a beer the wrong way. This restaurant is a joke. Save your time and money.

Went searching for Good Crabcake for lunch, well it ISN“T here! Price is the same price they charge at Joe’s Crab Shack even thought this restaurant is in the middle of strip mall next to the Post office. Décor is early 50’s make it look like a Tiki bar wannabe. Tried the Fish and Chips; which were 2 pieces of Fish and a basket of fries. (Same Price $ 12.50 that they Charge at Bass Pro Shops Fish Restaurant Islamorada’s in Ashland, Va.) Fries came loaded with SALT already on them from kitchen!!! Enough salt to kill you if you are on a low salt diet. Person who got crab cake also had salt already on their fries. Crabcake was nothing special (Not like Annapolis Seafood Crab cakes) and not even as good as Phillips which you can buy frozen and heat yourself. Service was poor. waited 5 minutes before we had to get up and find the waitress that is supposed to be serving. Oh well won’t make a repeat visit here.

What a waste of a seafood experience. I love crabs, crab legs, and seafood altogether. This place was a pure total waste. I know that «all you can eat» crab spots offer crappy cheap food in addition to the crabs to try and fill you up and keep their «all you can eat» costs down. but boy oh boy. this place. ugh!
I went on a Saturday evening, around 5 – 6 (ish?) and they had already run out of crabs, (The smaller ones they use for this menu) the waitress wasn’t very attentive from the beginning, and she was clearly frustrated that I wasn’t sure what to do when I learned that they were out of crabs… I was there with a friend who’s son wanted crabs, they were visiting from out of town for his birthday. so I stayed. big mistake!
So your first order is crab legs and you get two fried items. After looking at the «cheap Options» they have (shrimp, hush puppies, fries, crab cakes, fried clams maybe?) I decided to go with crab cakes. I placed my order, one hour later, the crab cakes still did not arrive.
They are slow in getting your orders out to you, after «trapping» the waitress and making nice talk with her she finally confessed that she had ordered the crab cake numerous times and has asked for it to be made over and over and she didn’t know what else to do… I told her to get a manager and send them to my table, the waitress came back with a crab cake and said the manager was on her way.
The manager shows up, I tell her that I’m not happy about waiting for over an hour for my first crab cake to show up from my first order (other people at my table ordered numerous orders of the other cheap sides and they came out quickly) and she said that she’s not sure what happened and she was going to check on it, I then told her that I wasn’t going to eat the one that they sent out because it was burned, she then began to argue with me telling me that that’s what they are supposed to look like, my response was OK, if you say so, I think not, but if you say so, it still took you over an hour to get it out to me, her response was they take longer to cook. (A fried crab cake takes an hour??) hmmm. she then proceeds to tell me she’s going to check to see what happened and that she’d be back. which never happened,
The waitress then comes back, and after empathizing with her as you can clearly see she’s stressed about the situation, she tells us that they were making fun of her and talking about her while she was standing right across from them, she’s only been there a short period of time, and that instead of making fun of her they should have been trying to help her, and she wasn’t going to be working there anymore.
If you want to pay $ 52 for all you can eat crabs, crab legs that come out slow, cooked «OK» (you know how sometimes they’re over cooked and you can’t get the meat out? Some were close, for the most part, the meat came out of the crabs), but slow to get to the table, burned crab cakes, and you enjoy the other fried options and you don’t care about how your server treats you, or the poor management team behind them, then this may be your spot,
I just wasn’t impressed, the food wasn’t worth $ 52 and I won’t be returning here, so good luck!

I like this place, we’ve been in a few times I’ve tried a few of the menu items and never been disappointed. I really like the fried oysters.
Some of the items are too pricey, but over all it’s a good place for lunch.

I’ve searched high and low for fresh seafood after moving to the area from MD. Finally I found the Mad Crab. The food wasn’t the worst but the customer service left much to be desired. You kind of get the feeling you must be invisible while you wait at the bar to place your take out order. Once your order is placed you wait an eternity for your food. Like I said the food wasn’t the worst and I’m a BIG seafood lover so what did I do? You guessed it I go back this time for blue crabs. I order a dozen and take them home but when I opened the bag I was disappointed to say the least. The crabs were broken, missing legs, there was black «stuff» on them. I couldn’t eat them.
You are not going to believe this I guess I’m a glutton for crabs. I went back to the Mad Crab again hoping the experience was isolated (twice?). This time my «to go» order was taken right away. I didn’t order the blue crabs. I ordered scallops, shrimp and hush puppies with fries. I ended up waiting 40+ minutes at the bar for my food order. I guess I was invisible again. The customer service leaves much to be desired. The food is not reasonably priced. I don’t care to eat there again. Thank you

In a nutshell, over priced minus the quality. Basket meals come with fries and hard hushpuppies. Any additional sides are priced like meals. They should work on pricing, food quality and portions. I had the crabcakes, very mushy. Nothing was seasoned, only what you ordered drenched in batter or breading. The all you can eat prices are RIDICULOUS!!!

Went here on a Sunday, they have Sunday Ticket with the games on and a decent crowd at the bar. There also is a restaurant section, colors are a little bright in there, but we got a table in the bar area. They have some all you can eat packages but they were a little expensive so just went with the 1 lb of crab legs and my wife got the crab mac and cheese. Overall, was happy with the service an

TERRIBLE SERVICE BUT GOOD SEAFOOD. The slowest waitress service I’ve ever had. Waited well over 20 minutes to even see a waitress. My son went and got us a couple beers from the bar connecting restaurant to one side. We were just about to leave when to my amazement a waitress showed up and acted like she never saw us!
I won’t go back to this location anytime soon. They’ll close the doors I’m sure if they don’t do something with the service because the last time I was there everybody (patrons) were all complaining.

As a business owner myself I truly appreciate how hard it is to always be on your game when serving demanding customers. That’s why when I needed to arrange a special crab-​feast event for some employees and business associates I had my event planner contact the Mad Crab several days beforehand to give management a heads-​up and give them a chance to prepare for our group of 20+ VIP guests. I’d promised my guests a genuine hard shell crab picking experience and asked the restaurant to do their best for us. This restaurant failed the test.
Having never been to this restaurant I really didn’t know what to expect, but I have eaten a lot of hard shell blue crabs in a lot of different restaurants over the years and I can say without hesitation that this was the worst experience of any of them. It doesn’t take much to have a successful crab experience, typically you eat with your bare hands on a table covered with brown paper and have a pitcher of beer handy. The one thing that’s critically important is to have fresh, meaty crabs that have just been steamed before being brought to the table.
With anticipation I ordered a dozen crabs to start with but when they arrived at the table eight of them had no legs, three had one leg and only one had both legs. The crabs were smallish and the meat inside some of them was mushy, which usually happens when the crabs are reheated. Long story short, I ended up leaving three of the crabs on the tray because they were so light (lacking meat) they weren’t worth picking. The hush puppies were overcooked and almost inedible, so in the end I went home hungry.
Others ate Alaskan crab legs and I can’t comment on those, but if you’re looking for the real deal — meaty, freshly steamed blue crabs, you’ll need to go somewhere other than the Mad Crab.

We are fans of good seafood this beats the ride to Baltimore. We came out fat & happy would def go back again. We went around 3pm so not crowded at all. Jennifer was very attentive we got charged for some things we did’nt get they took them right off the bill… no harm done. I got the AYCE crab legs & shrimp not bad at all. Husband got 1 doz crabs & they were big & meaty.
UPDATE: what seafood place doesnt have the tiny forks to get the crab meat out of the shell? The waitress informed me they «got thrown out» & they werent ordering anymore REALLY … WTH?