I’ve been looking for a good seafood boil place in the Cedar Rapids area and decided to give this place a try after getting some recommendations. We were seated right away and our server was very attentive and our food came out in a reasonable time. I did not love the seating because there are no booths and I felt very exposed when we sat in the middle of the restaurant. My boyfriend and I split the “ A Lotta Crabby” combo and got it mild with the triple attack sauce. The sauce was quite thick and salty and the sausage was chewy. It was supposed to have a 1/2lb of shrimp but there was barely any, it was mostly sausage. Our food was also just warm when it came out and then the food and sauce got cold very quickly. Also I noticed they don’t give you a bib, wipes, or gloves for your boil so I had sauce all over my hands and my hands still smell even after washing them. Was it fine for a seafood boil in Iowa and did it satisfy my craving? Yes. Would I come back? Probably not.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 3
Service: 5
Marisa Gordon
I wanted to love this place so bad, I've been dying to try it! We stopped in tonight and it was so salty we could barely eat it, and I looove salt! I don't know if it was because it was the end of the day so all the seasoning settled to the bottom of the sauce but it was really a bummer. We did say something to the lady that checked on us but I don't think she knew what to say when we brought it up and she just walked away, our server Nick was sweet, though.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 1
Service: 4
Jason McLaughlin
Great place with good food.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
G AP
Our crab was very tender and the shells were mushy, meaning it did not crack easily. Some of the crayfish were overcooked and tough. The “garlic butter noodles” i received were quite literally ramen noodles mixed with a garlic sauce and topped with parsley. We had two boils, one of which they messed up and added the incorrect seasoning and chosen sides. The crayfish was average as well. The total for our meal was $156 which I believe is extremely overpriced for the QUALITY of food I received. The service was great and the waitress was very friendly, however, the meal was pretty subpar for the amount I paid for it.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 2
Service: 5
dieselhogger4362
Gumbo was exceptional, shrimp poboy was excellent, overall the food was great , I'm not sure why the place wasn't packed. Service was also excellent, my only complaint is , it's a 2hr drive to eat there.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Snow Crab with Sausage & Potatoes, Gumbo and Crawfish Etouffee, French Fries
Roy Hanson
Wide open warehouse feel, which is old, but also minor. Food was very good, sauce was very messy, but very good. Nice spice on the ATTACK version, hot enough to say hello, but not to drown it out. Crab seemed a little old, sticking to the shell, but flavor was all there. Loaded fries were the bomb! Service most excellent and prices are very reasonable for what you get, which is a lot.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
Rod Leiting
My wife and I went there for the first time last night. I would really love to give them 5*, but there are glaring problems that need addressed if they want to remain open.Pros: wait staff was prompt, friendly and helpful. Menu is a great alternative to other local restaurants. Food was prepared, spiced appropriately and presented nicely. Ingredients were top notch.Cons: Food was cold or mostly cool after a 50 minute wait. The corn was room temp at best, how does this even happen? When we arrived four people were eating, two were waiting for food, and 3 other couples came in after us. It was not a line out the door kind of night and hardly a surge of people. Couples entering were spaced in time, but was backed up because everything was so slow.We had shrimp/grits and grilled shrimp/scallops. Those are simple dishes to prepare, so I can’t imagine the disorganization required to make those 50 minute prep times. Giving 4* because I am hopeful this was an off night, great food if it was hot.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 1
Elijah Brand
Staff was super nice and checked in on us several times. Wait time for the food was only 15-20 minutes. This was our first time ever having a seafood boil and it was delicious. I highly recommend.
We came here for my dad's birthday since he wanted cajun food and they had great reviews. We were all very disappointed we had a large group so there was a gratuity added to our bill which is fine but we all felt like since she knew she had the automatic tip she didn't have to try her best. The sevice was very slow. Then on top of that the food was mediocre at best that took over an hour to come to out table.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 2
Service: 2
Julie H.
Wow! Run, don't walk to this restaurant! We had a party of 11. They were easily able to accommodate us on a Friday night. I'm a very picky fish eater and wasn't sure I would find anything to eat on the menu. I chose the blackened salmon platter (I neglected to get a pic). I don't like salmon. Stephanie told me I wouldn't be disappointed and she was right! I devoured it as did everyone else with their meals! We had 0 complaints! Food was excellent! Service was on point! We'll definitely be regulars!
The food and drink was really good but the service was horribly slow. We arrived at 5:30pm with 3 adults and one child. There were only 5 other tables seated with guests at the same time. We did not leave until after 7:30pm because our food took more than an hour to be served. Drinks were also taking upwards or 20-30 mins to get. It felt like there was too many servers on. Staff but not enough workers producing the food/drink. I hope they can figure this out...
imjust sosweet
This was my first time visiting the restaurant; they recently changed locations and are now in the old Bistro’s location in uptown Marion. My husband and I went for an early dinner, so there were not many people in the restaurant, which made us skeptical, but I am so glad we stuck around. The wait for food seemed a little long, but it was well worth it because my meal was so delicious. I ordered the blackened salmon and added a side of butter noodles and a corn cob YUM! The salmon was cooked well (which I like), and the rice and broccoli sides it came with were so good. I will be back soon, five stars.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Meghan Mcclaskey
Amazing food, fun cocktails and super friendly staff. Great music and atmosphere. We will be back frequently!!!!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Robert Reynolds
Delicious and friendly! It was a great experience. Worth every penny!
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Crab Legs with Shrimp, Andouille Sausage
bria adams
this place isn’t the worst i just feel like it’s kinda overpriced. gumbo ain’t all that either, im from st mary parish, Louisiana born and raised and that ain’t no gumbo… it was a little too salty and it was more like stew bc it was thicker ? it was still okay, but gumbo also takes a while to cook and it takes practice so i feel like thats probably why, also they didn’t have a lot of people working so it’s hard to prepare a huge amount of seafood while also serving food to 6 other people, if anything id say they need more people working there and they need to start using crab boil and zatarans seasoning so all of the meat can be flavored. they did good for being a seafood boil place in the middle of the midwest.
I’ve been looking for a good seafood boil place in the Cedar Rapids area and decided to give this place a try after getting some recommendations. We were seated right away and our server was very attentive and our food came out in a reasonable time. I did not love the seating because there are no booths and I felt very exposed when we sat in the middle of the restaurant. My boyfriend and I split the “ A Lotta Crabby” combo and got it mild with the triple attack sauce. The sauce was quite thick and salty and the sausage was chewy. It was supposed to have a 1/2lb of shrimp but there was barely any, it was mostly sausage. Our food was also just warm when it came out and then the food and sauce got cold very quickly. Also I noticed they don’t give you a bib, wipes, or gloves for your boil so I had sauce all over my hands and my hands still smell even after washing them. Was it fine for a seafood boil in Iowa and did it satisfy my craving? Yes. Would I come back? Probably not.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 3
Service: 5
I wanted to love this place so bad, I've been dying to try it! We stopped in tonight and it was so salty we could barely eat it, and I looove salt! I don't know if it was because it was the end of the day so all the seasoning settled to the bottom of the sauce but it was really a bummer. We did say something to the lady that checked on us but I don't think she knew what to say when we brought it up and she just walked away, our server Nick was sweet, though.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 1
Service: 4
Great place with good food.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Our crab was very tender and the shells were mushy, meaning it did not crack easily. Some of the crayfish were overcooked and tough. The “garlic butter noodles” i received were quite literally ramen noodles mixed with a garlic sauce and topped with parsley. We had two boils, one of which they messed up and added the incorrect seasoning and chosen sides. The crayfish was average as well. The total for our meal was $156 which I believe is extremely overpriced for the QUALITY of food I received. The service was great and the waitress was very friendly, however, the meal was pretty subpar for the amount I paid for it.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 2
Service: 5
Gumbo was exceptional, shrimp poboy was excellent, overall the food was great , I'm not sure why the place wasn't packed. Service was also excellent, my only complaint is , it's a 2hr drive to eat there.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Snow Crab with Sausage & Potatoes, Gumbo and Crawfish Etouffee, French Fries
Wide open warehouse feel, which is old, but also minor. Food was very good, sauce was very messy, but very good. Nice spice on the ATTACK version, hot enough to say hello, but not to drown it out. Crab seemed a little old, sticking to the shell, but flavor was all there. Loaded fries were the bomb! Service most excellent and prices are very reasonable for what you get, which is a lot.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
My wife and I went there for the first time last night. I would really love to give them 5*, but there are glaring problems that need addressed if they want to remain open.Pros: wait staff was prompt, friendly and helpful. Menu is a great alternative to other local restaurants. Food was prepared, spiced appropriately and presented nicely. Ingredients were top notch.Cons: Food was cold or mostly cool after a 50 minute wait. The corn was room temp at best, how does this even happen? When we arrived four people were eating, two were waiting for food, and 3 other couples came in after us. It was not a line out the door kind of night and hardly a surge of people. Couples entering were spaced in time, but was backed up because everything was so slow.We had shrimp/grits and grilled shrimp/scallops. Those are simple dishes to prepare, so I can’t imagine the disorganization required to make those 50 minute prep times. Giving 4* because I am hopeful this was an off night, great food if it was hot.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 1
Staff was super nice and checked in on us several times. Wait time for the food was only 15-20 minutes. This was our first time ever having a seafood boil and it was delicious. I highly recommend.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Snow Crab with Sausage & Potatoes, Crab Legs, Snow Crab
We came here for my dad's birthday since he wanted cajun food and they had great reviews. We were all very disappointed we had a large group so there was a gratuity added to our bill which is fine but we all felt like since she knew she had the automatic tip she didn't have to try her best. The sevice was very slow. Then on top of that the food was mediocre at best that took over an hour to come to out table.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 2
Service: 2
Wow! Run, don't walk to this restaurant! We had a party of 11. They were easily able to accommodate us on a Friday night. I'm a very picky fish eater and wasn't sure I would find anything to eat on the menu. I chose the blackened salmon platter (I neglected to get a pic). I don't like salmon. Stephanie told me I wouldn't be disappointed and she was right! I devoured it as did everyone else with their meals! We had 0 complaints! Food was excellent! Service was on point! We'll definitely be regulars!
Restaurantji Recommends
The food and drink was really good but the service was horribly slow. We arrived at 5:30pm with 3 adults and one child. There were only 5 other tables seated with guests at the same time. We did not leave until after 7:30pm because our food took more than an hour to be served. Drinks were also taking upwards or 20-30 mins to get. It felt like there was too many servers on. Staff but not enough workers producing the food/drink. I hope they can figure this out...
This was my first time visiting the restaurant; they recently changed locations and are now in the old Bistro’s location in uptown Marion. My husband and I went for an early dinner, so there were not many people in the restaurant, which made us skeptical, but I am so glad we stuck around. The wait for food seemed a little long, but it was well worth it because my meal was so delicious. I ordered the blackened salmon and added a side of butter noodles and a corn cob YUM! The salmon was cooked well (which I like), and the rice and broccoli sides it came with were so good. I will be back soon, five stars.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Amazing food, fun cocktails and super friendly staff. Great music and atmosphere. We will be back frequently!!!!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Delicious and friendly! It was a great experience. Worth every penny!
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Crab Legs with Shrimp, Andouille Sausage
this place isn’t the worst i just feel like it’s kinda overpriced. gumbo ain’t all that either, im from st mary parish, Louisiana born and raised and that ain’t no gumbo… it was a little too salty and it was more like stew bc it was thicker ? it was still okay, but gumbo also takes a while to cook and it takes practice so i feel like thats probably why, also they didn’t have a lot of people working so it’s hard to prepare a huge amount of seafood while also serving food to 6 other people, if anything id say they need more people working there and they need to start using crab boil and zatarans seasoning so all of the meat can be flavored. they did good for being a seafood boil place in the middle of the midwest.
Food: 3
Service: 4