Joe’s Crab Shack

The cocktails are amazing!!! My boyfriend had the shark bite it was incredible. I ordered the piña colada it was so good. I loved it.
Food was pretty yummy too!!! We got the lobster special that day!!!
And the only reason why I gave it 4 stars was because the service was not that great. It was very slow and did not give us silverware or anything.

We came by for Happy Hour and was immediately seated. We decided to sit in the bar area to catch Happy Hour specials which is from 3−7pm!!! Ordered $ 3 Strawberry Margaritas which were awesome. They only serve this on the rocks but cant beat the price!!! Our waiter Samantha was so awesome and was very attentive!!! She was very informative to help us better make a decision on our order!!! Overall, our waitress has made our experience a great one! Not to mention the food was amazing… no complaints!!! I will be back soon!!!

Love this location… The bad reviews seem to be from people who have never worked in this industry … I go to this joes often! I can honestly say I am satisfied with this place. Things get slightly crazy from time to time just as any other place in sd with good food. Keep up the good work… Serving and kitchen life not to mention bar tending has always been a struggle and half the people we sever have not idea to what’s going on… So thumbs up in the service and food! you guys are the shit so fudge a hater!
— loyal customer from way back, CC

Best service we had by far! Waitress was extremely helpful, never really had to ask for anything, she was always right on it. Location isn’t too bad. Food was fantastic. I recommend going on a Wednesday because that’s what they have unlimited crab for about $ 30!

This was an F+ for the experience. The restaurant was NOT busy, only about ¹⁄₃ full and it was after hours arriving about 7:30 pm on a Wednesday. We were seated immediately and greeted cheerfully. The service was quick initially to get us drinks and refills, but it took quite some time to get our order in and an eternity to get our food.

Crab is awesome, the service was amazing but stay away from the lobster. We ordered lobster and it came out with a consistency of straight mush. But our server and the manager were both very quick to remedy the situation. They allowed us to trade the lobster for an entire new crab pot. Very happy with the service and super yummy crab!

This place has great potential. The staff is young, eager, fun, and trainable. Lot’s of history
–this used to be the San Diego Rowing Club… Love the Peace Signs. Good people work here…

SKIP THIS RESTAURANT! We stopped here for lunch today, and had such a bad experience we ended up walking out!
The first thing we noticed was the horrible stench coming from the bathrooms. My husband noted that they must have a sewage problem. Luckily we were seated far enough away to not smell it! After we were seated by the hostess, we were then ignored by our waitress long enough for the hostess to notice and offer to track her down. She did, and the waitress STILL did not come over for quite a while. When she did finally come over and take out order, I notified her that we were on a tight time frame, and asked her to take our order. She did, but when she returned she only had my wine. She left, and after more waiting she stopped by with our waters and said, «Oh, you had an ice tea?», which we confirmed. After more waiting, no ice tea or food appeared. Note: the restaurant was ¾ empty, not at all busy.
At this point we had 10 minutes to walk back to our hotel and be back at our conference, with no food in sight, although we had been there for 30 minutes!
We put cash down for my drink, and got up and left. Funny as we were walking out, our waitress looked at us and ran the other way. We returned to our conference with empty stomachs! Very bad experience here!

My waitress was excellent! Smiling and very nice to us even when we took forever to order. She was quick and the food was great. The bill for two people was 125 $ this included drinks food and appetizers then desert. The view is awesome and the place is clean. Bathrooms Are small, but the bar and the entire place is pretty big. I recommend the place it’s a cool atmosphere and a great dinner or lunch

The service here is extremely slow. I forget which weekday I came in, but it definitely was not super busy. The waiters are very nice though, but they’re just so slow at attending to you. I felt so bad for a couple sitting in front of us and it was obvious they weren’t happy with the service either, the woman even stood up to get someone’s attention.
For the food, I would say it’s meh. I got one of those buckets, but I don’t think it’s worth it for the price… getting crab legs at a Chinese restaurant would have been a better deal!
They do have nice views of the ocean here and plenty of parking. If you are looking for seafood around this area, I’d recommend the Fish Market instead.

3.5−4 stars, mainly 4 stars because I had my 24^th birthday dinner here with my family, which I enjoyed.
All I got to say is that the BACON-​WRAPPED SHRIMP seemed like the most reasonable dish to get there. It wasn’t too heavy (unlike their huge fried seafood + fries platter or bucket of seafoods), shrimp + bacon together was a perfect pair, and it wasn’t as expensive as most of their dishes. The dirty rice was bomb too
If you come during the right time, you can easily see the waterfront view from their open windows. The restaurant itself is on the water behind the convention center.
Tried to escape the embarrassing «riding the pony around the restaurant for your birthday» thing, but our waiter made sure I stayed to do that. Pretty funny now that I think of it. Though a little bit embarrassing at the time, no regrets
Warning: there’s an employee going around each table to offer complimentary pictures… don’t be fooled. She takes many shots, about 5 pictures I think, and you might think that they’re all free. NO they are not, the better quality and larger pictures are of course not free of charge, but they do offer a smaller picture for free with a cardboard frame around it.
*you get I think about 90 min or 2 hours of free parking if you’re dining in and parking at Joe’s
*noticed a doordash food delivery employee waiting at the door, so they offer that service if you don’t want to dine in.
Thanks for a good birthday :)

The view is pretty, the food was delish the steak had a good seasoning. The chipotle Caesar salad was flavorful and the bucket of shrimp was nice n zesty. Cons the service is so so and cleaning is not their thing the restroom smelled so bad of mildew and there was mold growing on the counter the tables sat for over 25 minutes not picked up. When we left all dishes were still there. They do not pick up during or even immediately after.

What an excellent experience I had. I’ve never been here before in all the time I’ve lived in SD. Decided to try it out for dinner. It was packed. They originally tried to sit us at the very end of the restaurant and we decided to wait until a better booth was available. The staff was very friendly. I wish I could remember our waiters name but she was great! She was so accommodating. Made the experience one to remember. The food man! I can still taste it. I got the Rajun Cajun Bucket. So much flavor!!! I ate everything! Also had one of their signature drinks the shark bite. Delicious!!! I have nothing but good things to say. The view of the water was beautiful as well. I will return :) thank you for a wonderful evening.

This experience was a little unlike any other trip to Joe’s that I’ve been. Surprisingly (most likely because it was a tourist spot) they took a picture of me and my girlfriend and have us the picture for free at the end of the meal. That was very kind of them.
We got a make your own bucket with the sunset fire grill seasoning. The bucket came with 2 small potatoes, 2 halves of corn, crab, and we added 2 sausages for $ 3.69 each. The crab was on point but everything was way too salty and too over seasoned.
Overall the vibe was fun and the crab satisfied our craving but it was nothing over the top. To be honest though $ 50 later and we both left there still hungry.

Some of the best legs I’ve had in a really long time! Fantastic service too! They were obviously super busy but they had several different people wait on me to ensure I had the best possible dining experience; SUCCESS! From the hostess to the manager, some of the friendliest people I’ve met in San Diego!

Ordered the soup and salad for 10 bucks. The chowder was great, big chunks of clams, no bacon. My salad however was brown on the edges and slightly wilted. The table was sticky with blue slushy juice.

Wednesday $ 29.99 All you can eat crab…
it’s worth the ride
The nice girls kept refilling the bucket with more and more crab legs
They have a deal for almost every day of the week

I love this location because I can get my jumbo shrimp bucket to go and can eat at the park with my own wine, There’s plenty of space outside. If you wanted to watch the Clippers, Golden state or even the Lakers im sure they can help you. A plus for scenery

They have all you can eat snow crabs on Wednesdays. Great deal. Been there for 2 Wednesdays in a row so far. It was amazing!!! Might end up going there again tonight, who knows ;) .
I always enjoyed Joe’s Cajun steampots and wondered if they would ever have all you can eat !! My prayers were answered lol. Their customer service have definitely improved, the reason I initially stopped going there last year.

Really good food at a decent price. The staff seemed friendly and they were relatively quick with everything. They try to make things fun with words on bibs like they do at dicks, but not as crude.
I had the Cajun crab legs which had fairly soft shells that were cooked just right to make it easy to get into without a lot of mess.
I’d definitely recommend it for people to try.

El restaurante es realmente difícil de encontrar, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta que algunos GPSs lo ubican a la entrada del Gas Lamp Quarter, y no detrás del Convention center. El personal del local debería dar indicaciones claras por teléfono de cómo acceder a él e indicar que disponen de parking, lo cual facilitaría mucho el acceso y evitaría retrasos en las reservas.
Por otro lado, dentro del local la temperatura dejaba mucho que desear, las mesas estaban pegajosas y había que colocar un papel para poder comer agusto, además de que nuestra mesa se movía mucho.
La comida tampoco merece la pena. Los calamares y el pescado están tan rebozados que apenas sabes lo que estás comiendo y, cuando vas por el segundo trozo, ya estás lleno de tanta masa frita.