Crab House

08/10/09

Great View

by SummerLuvin

The food was excellent and if you asked to be seated by the window and have a reservation, they will happily accomodate. The drinks and food are pricey, but that's too be expected. It was still a great experience although the service was kind of lousy. It took the waiter quite a while to take our order. The upside is that they have computer ordering systems, so the order goes in while the waitstaff is standing in front of you.

• Pros: Good food, drinks,
• Cons: Slow service

07/06/09

Tightly packed crab house on Pier 39

by mejennings

Here's another spot me & my bf-Jayson have passed by many many times, & now we can finally say we've eaten @ the Crab House @ Pier 39 SF =) Went here for Father's Day dinner (this past June '09) for his pops as did a lot of other folks.

LOCATION: We drove into the Pier 39 Parking Garage & found parking on the 3rd floor. Luckily we did not have to make round trips in garage, as Pier 39 itself had a very nice crowd of people out visiting w/ a sunny yet cool day in SF. Saw a few U.S. Navy Sailors on the Embarcadero sportin' their clean whites...no it's not Fleet Week, that's in Oct, but a ship had docked so we had some service men & women visiting us for a bit. Yeeeh, I'm a very proud U.S. Navy "bratt"!

RESTAURANT: Since we parked on 3rd floor of garage, walked over the ramp to the 2nd level of Pier 39, where the Crab House is located. Had RSVP for 5:30pm for party of 4, got there 6pm, waited like 5min to be seated @ "their" version for a party of 4, & then waited another 10min to be re-seated @ a larger table for party of 6 (thanks to Hostess Onya for taking care of us w/ seating). Moms & I are like 5'4" (mind you we're hippy too), while bf & dad are like 5'8" & 5'10"...I've said in my own prev reviews, we really need our "elbow space" so just a heads up...food is good, but table area just seems small. Not handicapp friendly at all (I'm being honest) nor heavy/big-people friendly..I'm shootin' ya straight!

SERVICE: Our waiter Vito was being kept quite busy w/ our table & others, as it was a packed place on a Sunday evening. We got our bread, order of chowder, & cocktails, but no water. Timing from the moment we placed our drink order (H2O & cocktails), took about 10min for water to arrive @ our table. I'm not sure who to blame, but dag nab it, that didn't make much sense to us. Other than wait for water, service was good...able to flag down any employee speed walking by to ask for something & got the assistance. Again, tight/small place for the amount of patrons they want to cater so service is to feed u quickly, get you in & out, & move move move through the walkways btw tables.

DRINKS: We ordered Mojitos, all w/o the Mint...yes, w/o the mint. It just gets in our way. BF had Pineapple, I had Cuban Blue, & dad had Baja. The mojitos were pretty good. Speaking from a "light weight", Cuban Blue was enough & plenty alcohol...now speaking for dad (who's main drink is Tangueray or some gin straight on ice) it was aiight. Mojitos come recommended though.

FOOD: Pops had Bowl of Crab Chowder while the rest of us had the Cup; pretty hearty w/ more veggies than expected, but still good. Pops had Lobster Thermidor at which he said it seemed they just put a slab of cheese on the lobster vs a sauce compared to his tastings of Lobster Thermidor elsewhere; moms had Salmon while bf-Jayson & I shared Combo Mussels, Shrimp, & Crab. Mussels were easy to de-shell, but shrimp..well, so much work for so little meat. The buttery dipping sauce was good tho!

Final tab was $160 & some change. Interesting, the bill came out w/ the 15% gratuity calculated (NOT added to bill) for us just in case we wanted to know...wow wasn't that nice, here I thought that was done only for a party of 6+. U learn sumthin' new everyday. Honestly speaking, would we come back...likely noooot anytime soon, & if so, keep it just as a 2-some dinning experience..if larger than party of 2, recommend just go to Crockett's Dead Fish

• Pros: Crab house restaurant along Pier 39
• Cons: Small dinning tables give little elbow space

08/12/08

Not worth the money or the wait

by MelissaFromIL

My husband and I went about 8pm on a Monday night and had to wait about thirty minutes for a table. Our waitress was pleasant, but we only saw her when she took our orders and then brought the check. Kitchen staff served our food. We ordered crab cakes for an appetizer and the 3lbs of crab that you share. The crab cakes were $15, and we got two. Not two big ones, two little crab cakes less than the diameter of a baseball. They were good, but no way were they worth $7.50 each. The crab was also good, about on par with Red Lobster. Had it been less expensive, we would have been impressed, but not at $60. I would recommend saving some bread to dip in the garlic butter residue once you're done with the crab, that was amazing.