How it Started
Three of our 4 children have been telling us to go on dates. Their ages are 14, 7, and 5. Our oldest babysits and all is well so far. Why are they about kicking us out of the house though on dates? We don’t tend to argue as a couple so it is not as if they fear us divorcing (I am not even sure our 7 and 5 year old know the word actually). It isn’t as if our teen even commonly gets paid beyond her allowance unless the situation is some how special, like she had to cancel her own plans to accommodate us. It doesn’t seem as if they are planning anything special. I have to think that maybe they have noticed the extra boxes coming in the mail and maybe they know they are holiday gifts I am stashing in my room. Maybe they are peeking? I don’t have proof but so far I am not coming up with much as normally our kids do not want us to go any place without them! In any case, it was yet another night of them telling us we should go out and so my husband I went out. We had eaten at the normal places we enjoyed and it seemed silly to go back to them so soon. And then there was a sign….
EAT AT JOES
It was bright and neon and advertising for “Joe’s Crab Shack” the restaurant. I was just thinking about an online facebook group for locals that I had seen say “Eat At Joe’s” more than a few times. It was a popular new place in town and it seems a lot of people raved about it. My husband jokingly said we should eat at Joe’s and I couldn’t think of a good reason not to so we did. It is not as it we had a planned out date night, the kids has just about kicked us out of the house.
Inside we found the decor to be great, very ocean fun in style and there are different textures all around including some metal plated walls near booths that just add a great touch to the place, not to mention match the silver buckets on all the tables. Some of the tables even have circle cut outs in the middle to hold the buckets. These buckets are for your see food trash. All tables also have rolls of brown paper towels because cracking sea food open can be messy! We where seated quickly and our waitress was right there to introduce us to Joe’s Crab Shack. She told us to use as much of the napkins as needed and pointed us to a sink near the center of the restaurant if we wanted to wash up even better. She took some of the brown paper towel and wrote her name in marker on it and put it on the table so we would remember. (and I think marked us as her table as well) She told us about the food and what she liked best, got our drink orders and app order and off she went. I have to say I thought the music was loud at first but what I soon discovered was that it really adds to the place. Cracking sea food can be loud! Not just that, it was nice to talk with my husband but not have the whole restaurant here our conversation. Not that anyone cares about our up coming moving plans or that he and spent a lot of the time on his cell phone looking at houses in the area we will be moving too. It was loud but some how that made it private and I liked that.
Drinks and App came fast. Service was great! We both ordered steampots. Different ones though so we could sample each others too! To even my surprise I wanted the:
Samuel Adams SteamPot sweet snow crab, 1 pound of clams, meaty lobster claws and smoked sausage all boiled in samuel adams lager. – 25.49
I about grew up in Cap Code and love sea food, specially lobster and clams. The steampots come with corn on the cob and small potatoes too.
I can’t even remember what one my husband had, it had a very light flavor though and not much seasoning. Before the food steampots came the waitress came over with bibs and tied one to each of us. It was a bit weird at first I have to admit and I hate wearing anything closely around my neck but my husband I just went with it, laughing at one another!
Of course I had to snap an instagram photo of the husband to post to facebook!
Food came very fast and mine had a lot of seasoning. I thought it might be too spicy for me as I don’t really like spicy things but I got used to it fast and really liked it. (I did some how inhale some of the spices on the corn on the cob and felt like my lungs where on fire and coughing up a storm at one point but that is my own fault. Thankfully the music was loud enough not many noticed my episode as I don’t like drawing attention to myself. LOL) The food was amazing. I felt so guilty about eating out and having my teenage daughters favorite food without her (crab legs) that we asked the waitress to box up an extra meal to bring home to her! The waitress helped me pick out the meal with the most crab legs even for her!
With the meal comes these odd plastic tools that help you crack open the sea food. I have never seen them before. They say something about “this stolen from Joe’s Crab Shack” or some such. It made me giggle a bit. I mean who would take a utensil from a restaurant?
The meal was great and so was the service. I loved the flavor and it was all cooked so well. When all was done my steampot was empty and the trash bucket was full! I more then understood the need for the huge bibs too. Some how I still managed to drop something on my jeans!
While we had been given big wet wipe packets that I did use, I still got up to use the helpful sink! Great idea I have to say. We tipped better than 20% for the great service and I really understood why everyone raves about the place on the forums.
Goodness our teen was thrilled with the meal we brought her home. It was late and she had long before eaten dinner so nothing stopped her from enjoying it. That is another thing about Joe’s, it is open Sun-Th till Midnight and Fri-Sat till 1am! I love that it is open so late!
So less than a week went by and the kids again told us we should go on a date. So we did and we went right back to Joes! I had priced the ingredients at the local shopping markets thinking might be able to make the steampots at home too but as it turns out, it is cheaper to eat at Joes! So we tried other meals and they where as great as the first ones. Great service even with a packed restaurant this time. When our meal was done I noticed my husband take the plastic tool that helps you crack into things off my plate and put it in his pocket with his. I was shocked. I told him he couldn’t take those! He said why not, that he had last time, they want you to. I just couldn’t believe it. How could he do such thing…. he is a great man and defends our country and would never steal and yet…. so he asked the server if he could take the yellow tools home and the server to my shock said they expect people to take them home and asked if my husband wanted any more of them to take home. Of course my mouth dropped open I am sure and I was stunned. I worry so much at times about doing the right thing, never being rude, that it didn’t dawn on me the place wants people to take them. Silly me. I of course told my husband he was right and I was wrong. He didn’t ask me to say it but sometimes one just needs the validation you know? We tipped well again (something I love that my husband does! We don’t have a lot of money but if we splurge to eat out he plans to tip well! Our eating out so often is RARE, as in normally less than twice a year, but as of late that has changed a bit, more about that in another post, beyond the kids telling us to go out!) and Will said if we enjoyed his service then we should ask to be seated in his area next time! I have a feeling both servers will be seeing us again.
Thanks for reading my review. This one is not at all in any way connected to Joe’s Crab Shack. They didn’t ask me to review or give me anything or any discount. They don’t know I review things even. I just loved the place so much I wanted to share just why you might hear “Eat At Joe’s” and why I think it is a great place to dine for seafood!
(I will of course post when I figure out what my little ones are up to asking us to go out on dates…. LOL)
