Big chain, small reward at The Boiling Crab

On the last Sunday in July, Katie Marron stood in the space that had been Miss Katie's Crab Shack in Fitzroy. "We're having a bit of a fire sale!" she called to a man who walked into the Smith Street storefront. "If you see something you want and don't like the price, just let me know." 

Miss Katie's closed after nine years for a number of reasons. The price of crab has increased dramatically, particularly for fresh crab, and Marron refuses to use frozen. Crab boil isn't a meal people crave or can afford on a weekly basis, and this is a neighbourhood in which you need regulars to survive. And recently, a huge international chain called The Boiling Crab has opened in the CBD – competition she feels she can't weather. 

I'm quite familiar with The Boiling Crab. There's a location in Glen Waverley, and the chain is beloved in the Los Angeles area, where I lived for many years. Here's the pitch: giant bags of steamed shellfish, drowning in sauce, dumped on your table – no cutlery, just a bib and some gloves and some tools for cracking and cutting, and some wet wipes to clean yourself up afterwards. Based on a traditional Louisiana crab boil but taken to an extreme, the idea is basically to ingest as much shellfish as possible, and very little else. There are chips and a few fried dishes, but mostly you go there to eat ungodly amounts of crab and other crustaceans. 

I wondered how well The Boiling Crab translates to Australia (Melbourne and Shanghai are the only locations outside of California), given that the seafood available here is different, the notion of a crab boil less pervasive. And in many ways, The Boiling Crab personifies a kind of American chain that has traditionally not done well here, one that relies on a style of branded hospitality and decor that seems disingenuous, to put it kindly.

"How did you hear about us?" the hostess demanded as soon as we entered, with a note of high-strung enthusiasm that bordered on terror. Televisions covered most of the wall space, all of them playing clips of various influencers chowing down at The Boiling Crab.

We were taken to our seats where the extremely peppy server covered the table in paper and explained the system. Choose your seafood, your sauce, your spice level. 

We went all in: crayfish, Moreton Bay bugs, king crab legs, brown crab, prawns. We varied the sauces and spice levels. We donned bibs and gloves. We ordered margaritas ($20), which came in plastic cups and tasted alarmingly like tequila mixed with flat Sprite. 

The crayfish came first, ($30 per pound, for some reason it is measured in pounds) drowning in Cajun sauce and with potatoes ($4 for three) and sausage ($7 for 15 slices). The meat was bouncy and tasted like … nothing much at all. 

The flesh of the king crab legs ($165.34/kg) came out of the shell desiccated, forming a sad little pile on the paper in front of me. At $105 for four legs, it is perhaps the worst money I've spent on food in my life. Unsurprisingly, the Moreton bay bugs ($99.12/kg) were by far the freshest and best of the seafood we had, given that they're from Australia and less likely to have been frozen. But everything we ate was overcooked, or was of such bad quality to begin with that cooking it well was an impossibility. The sauces imbued the lot of it with a muddy sameness. And honestly? The thing I enjoyed the most was the three sad potatoes in the bag of crayfish. 

Let me be clear: I love a crab boil. I've made myself a disgusting mess, cracking and gobbling and covered in butter and sauce, at the homes of friends and at restaurants. Getting down and dirty in order to consume seafood does not bother me. In fact, I love crab and have often wished there were more places to go in Melbourne to enjoy it. 

But this? This is not worth it. Not the expense, not the time, not any part of it. 

I also feel for the staff here, who are mostly young and sweet, but seem to be timed on every aspect of service. Managing an operation this big requires protocols, but I get the feeling this place is aiming for a level and style of service that struggles to allow for the humanity of its employees.

I thought of Miss Katie's as I paid a beaming young woman at the front counter with panic in her eyes. Of the very human nature of a single owner/operator selling off her restaurant's plates and tables and nautical kitsch. Marron will come out of this fine – she plans to open a wine bar in the same space. But what do we, as a city, lose when the small quirky places can't compete? Overcooked, overpriced seafood and more wine bars, I suppose. 

The low-down

The Boiling Crab 

Vibe American chain restaurant covered in Sharpie graffiti

Go-to dish (Do I have to??) Moreton Bay bugs

Drinks Basic beer selection, bad margaritas