I love a good festival—brewfest, craftfest, garden festival—and perhaps the most famous chain restaurant of all: Red Lobster’s Crabfest. Rather than featuring vendors, attractions, and a generally boisterous party, this event, if you can call it that, is actually the launch of some new, special menu items at Red Lobster.

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Although the seafood chain was recently in the news for filing for bankruptcy, Crabfest is inexplicably back this year. (Although not without a little help from Flavor Flav, who ordered the entire menu at once to save the sinking ship.) One thing is for sure—the restaurant isn’t weighing anchor just yet. The reintroduction of Crabfest is bringing several new dishes to Red Lobster diners across the country.

As a Cheddar Bay Biscuit fan, I was excited to see what Crabfest at Red Lobster would be like. I wondered what the atmosphere would be like, what the food would taste like, and if Red Lobster was worth visiting while it was going bankrupt.

This review is based on first-hand impressions of Red Lobster promotional materials and products.

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After a four-year hiatus, Crabfest washed ashore at Red Lobster locations once again in 2023. Given the brand’s ever-unfolding financial drama, it would be reasonable to assume that Crabfest got caught in a fishing net somewhere and never returned. However, it’s back here for a limited time. I wish I could give you something more concrete, but the brand seems completely coy when it comes to giving any clues as to when Crabfest will end.

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For this limited time, you can order from a special menu of entrees that—I’ll have to check my notes again—include crab. Some dishes contain more crab than others, and they come in a variety of forms. The Crabfest menu includes five to six dishes, depending on where you eat. There’s a pound of crab legs, a crab and lobster duo plate, snow crab legs with sirloin or fillet steak, crab mac and cheese, and a lump crab carbonara. To get an accurate picture of what you can eat at Crabfest, I sampled a few options and looked for what would give me the most bang for my buck.

Pasta calls me like the sea calls Moana, but if there’s ever a pasta that’s better left on the menu, it’s this one. Believe me when I say it looked promising. Both the picture and the description won me over immediately. But one bite and I was off the hook.

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The Creamy Crab Carbonara is a thin linguini with an ambivalent cream sauce, crab, bacon and tomatoes. The bacon added a smoky note that didn’t go well with the crab, but the seafood wasn’t flavorful enough to make much of an impression. The tomatoes were diced and flavorless, either lacking the sugar of their ripe stage or never having had time to eat one.

Of all the dishes I tried, this was the least popular and the one that looked barely gnawed when my server came back to clear it away. For $20, it seemed like a pretty good deal, but there were definitely better options on the menu.

Of course, I had to try some of that classic surf and turf. This $33.99 dish was a combination of snow crab legs and sirloin with some sort of crab topping. There’s also your choice of sides, but I’ll stick to the Crabfest dishes in question here.

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I struggled to figure out exactly what it was. In reality, it definitely looked different than the advert – snake gasps – but it appeared to be some sort of crab butter. At least that was my best guess, as it was definitely not the flaky crab meat I’d seen in the menu photo. On the plate, there was a sprinkling of parsley over everything, including the shells of the crab legs, which I found infinitely silly.

The steak was cooked medium rare, as per my medium-rare request. The legs were quite tasty and had a fair amount of meat. Honestly, this dish was fine. There was nothing extraordinary about it, but it ticked all the boxes. With a side dish, it served its purpose, but don’t expect this to be the best crab or sirloin you’ve ever eaten.

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As a huge lobster fan, I was looking forward to this dish. For $37.99 you get crab, lobster, and a side. The tail I was served was medium-sized; I’ve definitely had larger ones in restaurants, but I’ve also had smaller ones served.

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It can be difficult to get the right consistency for lobster. I’m not the only one who has eaten lobster that was overcooked or undercooked. I’m happy to say that this one was quite good, a relief for a restaurant chain that takes its name from seafood. Not too tender, not rubbery, but nice and juicy. I’ve always been a fan of butter and love when lobster and crab are served with a warm cup, so that was a nice bonus with this platter too.

While the seafood wasn’t disappointing, I couldn’t help but feel that this dish should have been a little more interesting. It was just so simple. Maybe that’s what most people want when they visit Red Lobster, but for a restaurant chain struggling to survive, I wish Crabfest would come out with something that would draw people in. Simple, fine dining just won’t cut it.

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Okay, Red Lobster, we need to talk. Your menu says Crab Mac & Cheese for $7.99 or as a side for $5.49, but it’s a tiny side. It’s so tiny. Make it entree size, not that little pea brain size. This was by far the best bite of the night.

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Unfortunately, it wasn’t the crab that was so exciting here, but the macaroni and cheese with the little bits of onion on top. The cheese was perfect and the cavatappi pasta was a perfect choice, but the crab? To me, it honestly looked more like crab meat from a can than the good stuff straight out of the scissors. It was also just on top. Nothing was mixed here, it was a garnish. Crab shouldn’t be the garnish of a party where its name is front and center. Any amount of mixing and baking, sprinkling with breadcrumbs and putting cheese on top for a minute would have improved the crab’s reputation.

Honestly, and this pains me, but no. I wouldn’t push your family to the Crab Feast. The dishes are fine, but if you live anywhere near the coast or are on vacation on a coast, save your money for a place that makes the seafood special and memorable. My meal was fine, but it just wasn’t worth the detour.

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When I was in the restaurant, the staff was very attentive and friendly, but there was also pretty much no one there. The atmosphere felt like a restaurant about to close, even though I was there during one of the peak dining times. When I was a kid, Red Lobster was the place to go. You had to wait quite a long time for a table. Now, business just seems to be drying up. Customers have turned their attention to restaurants far away that are interested in attracting people and making the experience unique, delicious and memorable.