Doc’s Seafood Shack and Oyster Bar

Family friendly and worth the wait! We loved the gumbo, oysters, stuffed crab… and basically everything on the giant platter we got. We love local favorites and hole in the wall type places. This is our kind of place! Also, despite how busy the restaurant was, our waiter (an older gentleman) was on it!!!

Over-​rated. What a great following Doc’s enjoys. But when you are on top, there is still work to be done to stay there. Parties seated are not greeted in the order they arrived, so enjoy some crackers provided on the table tops.
Fired shrimp are very good, but were not hot. French fries were plentiful and some warm, some room temperature.
Gumbo had a great taste, but few seafood goodies, mostly very tasty gravy.
Doc’s needs better quality control, their very busy environment is not an excuse to rest on their laurels. Please try harder Doc.

The food here is really good especially the fried shrimp and the grilled shrimp but the price is a bit much considering you are getting mostly fried food choices. Always expect a wait because they are very busy and it’s a little difficult to get into and out of the parking lot.

This humble little shack makes the best fried oyster ever! Scallops, extra melted butter? Yes please! So people may be standing in line, but it’s worth the effort. And also we met a very nice hostess that worked there with her cute southern twang. She was very warm and welcoming that even in the hot humid days of summer when we were there, it made the experience quite memorable. This small place is very charming and has awesome food. So if you are ever in the orange Beach area, do not make a mistake of not stopping by because you will regret it if you won’t pay homage to this marvelous place. Kudos to the staff and keep up the good work!!!

You know you’re in for a treat when there are twenty plus people standing in front of the building waiting to eat. We were quoted a 45 min wait but were seated in 25 minutes.
Most of my party ordered crab claws — they said they were the best they had eaten in a long, long time. I had the fried shrimp and it was super fresh, crispy, and delicious. Our waitress was superb: quick and checked on is an appropriate amount.

Ehh… Shrimp was good but small for the gulf. Place was a shack, hence the name. Don’t expect fancy or very clean. Ambiance, none. Not sure why this place is rated so high. Get the shrimp if you go. The fish is catfish. I know, catfish on the gulf… That should tell you something.

Best fried fish dinner we had. Good food, good service, good atmosphere. We will be back.

The classic local seafood dive. My family has been coming here since the early 80’s. They have great fried shrimp, gumbo, sweet tea and lunch specials. This place is an institution in this little beach town. I hope they stay in business for at least another 35 years.

Wow, great food. The gumbo is the best. Small lil place with «down home «atmosphere.

What more can you say about Doc’s? Always yummy. Always a bit crazy. You always get good, local, fresh seafood. Whether it’s fish or shrimp or anything on the menu: Good.
Best thing about Doc’s Seafood Shack & Oyster Bar is the establishment. This eatery has been around for a long time — last time we visited was more than 10 years ago! It hasn’t changed. Quick service, little heavy on the grease, and a little heavy on the price. And all good!
If you really want to find local seafood, this is the place to go in Orange Beach. Forget about walking in straight from the beach — you’ll find you’re right at home however you arrive.

Service was great, they were able to easily accommodate our party of 8 very quickly. Food was out to the table very quickly as well. The fried shrimp was excellent, perfectly fried. The crab cakes were ok, but by far not the best I’ve ever had.

This place is «okay» everything seems to be offered in fried (not including red royals that are raw, of course). The food tasted as tho the grease needed to be changed.

Original (⁸⁄₁₂): I can’t imagine why this place is so popular. I’m from California, so I eat seafood regularly, and maybe that’s biasing my review, but I have never in my life eaten seafood this bad for the price (and the 45 minute wait). Their motto is «laid back local stuff» and they sure live up to the laid back part. To start, our table and chairs were covered in coleslaw. I had to clean them off myself with my own hand sanitizer and half a roll of paper towels. For the dinner, I ordered a side salad (supposedly made with mixed greens) and half shell oysters. The side salad was covered in what seemed like prepackaged shredded cheese (you know when it is coated in a cancer-​causing powdery substance to keep it from clumping?), which wasn’t listed on the menu. Yuck. The oysters weren’t cleaned and were served on a brown serving tray. Given the state of the table and chairs, who knows if they bothered to wash the tray off before serving dinner on them. The mouthfuls of dirt combined with the tray killed it. I mean… did they run out of plates? A $ 20 dinner should be served on an actual dish. The best part of the meal food-​wise was the horseradish, but our waitress deserved 5 stars (only reason I gave this place 2 stars). She was a doll. Super sweet and totally on the ball with refilling drinks and checking on our table. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same story with the food. Just another case of over-​hyped «local» food. Would never eat here again.
Update (⁸⁄₁₄): I had to come back and change my review. My dad and I both got food poisoning and were throwing up all day the following day. Put a huge damper on our two-​day visit to Orange Beach. Word to the wise: save your money and your stomach; eat ANYWHERE but here. You’d be better off with McDonald’s.

My family ate here today. I ordered the large plate of fried shrimp. There were about a dozen that were overlooked, rubbery and cold. My wife had boiled shrimp which were very good and skewered shrimp that were cold and had some sort of a coconut tasting sauce. Not good. My son had a chicken sandwich that he reports tasted like a fast food sandwich.
We may have just had a bad experience. I don’t know. We won’t try it again though.

Hmm, where do I start… we’ve been visiting the Alabama coast for years. Doc’s is one place we never visited until now.
Went before 2pm and noticed they had a blue plate special. With two teen boys it was a good deal, less than $ 9.00 for a main dish & three sides, also included a drink & desert.
Our waitress was wonderful!
Service on a whole was slow, but we are on vacation & realize we need to «roll with it.»
That being said, while we were waiting we did spot a cockroach, climbing on the wall next to our table… ick.
Fried chicken was REALLY good, as was the fried fish.
I had the gumbo, and comparing it to gumbo I’ve had in New Orleans… I thought it was just so/​so.
We probably wouldn’t go out of our way to visit again.

Best gumbo this side of New Orleans. Fried shrimp is really good. Not popcorn sized but could be a little bigger.
Be sure to make your own cocktail sauce with the fresh horseradish on the table. Fill the cup with ketchup and dredge some crackers through it. Amazing!!!

We went in for old times sake since we were nearby on a Wednesday evening & they were not packed. We ordered the fried crab claws appetizer, clam strips and medium/​hot buffalo wings. The buffalo wings were very good; they were crispy even when coated with sauce. The fried claws were a bit overcooked and were a little dry. My husband enjoyed his fried clam strips and hush puppies. Overall it was not as great as we remembered it so we were glad we didn’t have to wait through a weekend line.

It’s a shame I’ve driven by here many time, I’ve seen the lines, I’ve seen the crowded parking lot, but I still said to myself it’s all fried.
Well, today is the big day I went to docs and yes a lot of it’s fried, but it’s the best damn fried food I’ve ever had. I am not a connoisseur of fried food. And, I am not a connoisseur of fried shrimp. Typically it’s rubbery, ammoniated and dry.
Now for the purposes of this review I’m going to purposely misspelling the word shrimps and spell it scrimps, why you ask? Well, there’s this jerk reviewer from Unilocal that had the temerity to send me a short note about how my misspellings were atrocious. There by negating the review. Yes, it’s a shame we have so many arrogant jerks out there, but they exist, so yes the SCRIMPS were delicious
I really wanted the fried chicken black, eye’d peas and rice with gravy, because that is the south. I went with though the combo order of fried shrimp (scrimps), fried oysters and fried clams. The fried shrimp and fried oysters were very fresh and light, yes light. There was no heavy oily taste. The fried clams, well Orange Beach, Al isn’t known as a clam capitol, and they tasted bagged and previously frozen.
That being said Doc’s yeah it’s a shack, but it’s a shack with a line. A line worth standing in. So, go get dem scrimps, scrimps, scrimps and maybe later I’ll tell ya about the fried chiken or is it chixen?

Doc’s is a seafood shack that is always pretty busy. We ordered a variety of fried seafood platters and were disappointed. Everything seemed to taste the same, just of fried batter.
We would rate this place as just okay and if we went back we would probably order something grilled or broiled.

Doc’s claim they have the best fried shrimp in the modern world. I am convinced they are right.
They have a store you can buy shirts and some other small novelty items from. We bought several T-​shirts of course — after we had stuffed ourselves appropriately.
They have a tiny eat-​in bar if you are not up for sitting in the restaurant side. Super family friendly w/​plenty of TVs to watch all the sports you want.
On the tables they have several little containers of horseradish and a large vat of ketchup. This is so you can mix it yourself and create your own cocktail sauce.
Genius!!!
The waitress told us, insert appropriate southern accent here «Careful you don’t eat that horseradish by itself now, it’ll bite ya.»
Of course we mixed it HOT.
Friend shrimp is a MUST and absolutely delightful. Fried clam strips were meh. Fried fish — to die for — and fried chicken — super yum. The crispy crunchy batter kind. Yes, we ordered everything. If you go here, just order everything. You will not be disappointed.