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    Gettin Crabby At The Crab Barn

    2.6 (142 reviews)
    ModerateSeafood

    Gettin Crabby At The Crab Barn Photos

    GETTIN CRABBY AT THE CRAB BARN ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Casual
    Quiet
    Good for kids
    Outdoor seating

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    One of the decorative plaques.
    Lucy B.

    Still the best place! Hubby got fish n chips, fish was thick and huge. My lobster tails delicious! Salad with house dressing is awesome. Service top notch! Ambiance with old music wonderful.

    Mahi Mahi ... blurgh
    Mike F.

    The grand re-opening was years in the making, but was it worth the wait? The jury's still out. There was a massive amount of hype leading up to the Crab Barn's return, which had been dormant since its initial closing in 2008. Once a seafood staple in Berks County, the original restaurant had seemingly run out of steam in the late 2000s, as the overall experience of the Muhlenberg Township eatery had spiraled downward across the board - food quality, service, accommodations - you name it. However, with new ownership and new renovations, expectations were high that the new Crab Barn could recapture the magic of the late 90s-early 2000s when it was in the prime of its existence. Sadly, they are way off the mark. I'm always surprised when seasoned restaurateurs decide to launch a new place and don't come hot out of the gates. How can food be so underwhelming in the first month? How are you ever going to get repeat business? Supposedly these cooks have been training for months ahead of the opening. I say "cooks", because there CANNOT be a head chef back there, or at least one with any standards. If touting yourself as a seafood restaurant, that should be your focus. Serve up a sub-par chicken sandwich, a lousy chef salad, a mediocre beef tips in burgundy sauce, but for the love of God, don't eviscerate every ounce of flavor from your fish fillets, crab legs, and lobster tails by overcooking and under-seasoning the hell out of them. That's your (so-called) wheelhouse. Let's get it together. Here's the backwards thing about this place, though. The salads ARE good. The chicken IS good. Certain seafood that is either fried (i.e. conch fritters) or served cold (lobster roll) is fine! But the actual seafood platters where fish is required to be baked, broiled, pan-seared, grilled, or whatever, is where this place suffers. How is that possible? It's a seafood place where most of the seafood isn't the best choice on the menu. In its current form, the new Crab Barn will suffer the same fate as the short-lived reboot of the Seafood Shanty. Once a beloved name, the new owner ran it into the ground within months. Will that happen with this place? It certainly appears that way. I can only hope the owner can right the ship before it's too late.

    crab legs and fries
    Stacia M.

    We have been craving seafood lately and wanted to give this place a try. Overall, the decor is nice and the staff was friendly. However, if your hope is to find good seafood, this place unfortunately isn't it. Our meal started with house garlic bread. It arrived soggy and very buttery. We ordered a mussel bucket, which arrived in a bowl rather than the large bucket we envisioned. The four of us in our party couldn't even choke them down. We felt badly about leaving most of them in the bowl but they were mushy and had no flavor. The crab legs we ordered were great! We had a drink from the bar, tasted like straight sugar syrup. Overall, we most likely won't be back. You can find better seafood elsewhere, which is a shame because the place is really neat and the staff is very friendly.

    Boom Boom Shrimp
    Becky D.

    I came here a couple of months ago with my husband and son. The overall look of it is so nice and well done. It's a rather large place. There's a bar downstairs, which is nice if you're waiting. There's a bar upstairs along with two large dining areas. They also appear to have outside seating, which was obviously closed due to winter. We got there and were told a half hour wait. Okay, great let's put our names down and wait. Well about 50 minutes later we were called after checking twice where we were at. The hostesses seemed to be very overwhelmed. We were seated in a booth in the one dining area. The server came over after about 5-6 minutes. She was very overwhelmed with tables so that was understandable on her end. The server we had was super friendly and very knowledgeable of the menu. She was able to help guide us through the menu to pick different foods. My husband and I got the boom boom Shrimp as an appetizer which had a great flavor and some kick. We both had decided in crab cakes. He got his with the cucumber tomato salad and I got mine with fried plantains. Now, the crab cakes were good and didn't have a lot of "fillers." However, the fried plantains were sort of cold and rubbery. Probably the worst plantains I've ever had. The food took quite awhile to come out. As for drinks, they have an extensive beer list, which is excellent! My husband chose a couple of their beers to drink, which were nice and cold. I ordered one of their Bloody Mary's. I can honestly say it was the worst Bloody Mary I've ever had and didn't even drink half of it. The server wound up taking it off, which was unnecessary but very kind of her. The drinks also took a great deal to get to our table the first time we ordered (I'd say about 10 minutes). Overall, the prices are very high. I can go to the Ugly Oyster for better food at a better price. This place has a lot of fixing up to do if they want to survive. I did speak to a manager who was very kind but he even seemed a bit overwhelmed by everything. Hoping to give this place another try in a few months.

    Spicy Seafood Chowder
    George S.

    Great atmosphere, great friendly service, good drinks, plenty of parking, great for groups, pricing is fair. There are a lot of positives to the Crab Barn.....the soups are good the dinner platters are average.

    This is what I received cut in half...mushy mess...

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    Page 1 of 4

    Ask the Community - Gettin Crabby At The Crab Barn

    Is food good?

    No everything is frozen or premade and it's overly expensive!!

    Don’t See Your Question? Ask Away!

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    Had another great experience w/ a few setbacks. I miss the bread basket. The rolls are fine, but…read morethe former basket of varietals was special. Also, what happened to the Kona coffee rub ?? Was our absolute favorite & husband reported the steak was bland without it. On a positive, love they acquired a pastry chef. My to-go Coconut Cake was divine. The Ice Cream Affogato is brilliant in its simplicity! The Sautéed Mushrooms incredible! How much can you do w/ a mushroom ?? Ask the chef! Also, think they have the best Mac n Cheese (tho I do miss the fresh herb component). Still a favorite, but hoping some of the former glory is restored on my next visit!

    Willoughby's absolutely never misses. I can't think of anything I've had that didn't wow me, and…read morethe service is impeccable. Even the complementary bread and butter is high quality--a bit torturous, in fact, since you don't want to spoil your appetite for the what's coming. Go big and get the Delmonico ribeye. Perfection. The oysters with the perfectly vinegary migonette sauce is a great starter, as is the butcher's bacon. Also, pro tip, you can get the salads in half sizes and you wouldn't go wrong with any of them. The caesar is my favorite, but recently had an outstanding wedge as well, with plenty of bleu cheese.

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    Platinum Cafe & Lounge - Chicken Tenders

    Platinum Cafe & Lounge

    3.5(4 reviews)
    2.0 mi

    Well......I must say, my visit to Platinum Café & Lounge was quite the experience. That description…read moremay very well be an understatement, but it was definitely an interesting time for both myself and my three girlfriends. While the venue may not have been the greatest to me, I am sure others will love it! We went to the lounge after attending a old school hip hop concert a the Santander Arena. We did a random google search and found this spot which serve food, drinks and hookah, so it was just what we were looking for. The venue is not too big, but it was clean. There is seating at the bar and also both tall pub tables and shorter tables with chairs. We opted to sit at one of the tables with chairs and were happy to find out positioned "out of the way" for the action. There was a live band playing Dominican music and they were performing their hearts out! Not my preference, but it was good live music nonetheless. As the night went on the DJ switched to hip-hop and other popular music genres. The staff was nice, but my issue is most of the staff did not speak English, so it was hard for us to order drinks and foods. Our group of four ordered a few rounds of shots, asking for three vodkas and one tequila each time and the order was incorrect every time. We actually resorted to typing in a translator app on our phones to speak to the staff. The guy providing the hookah spoke English but failed to tell us that after paying $30 for the initial hookah, it costs another $20 bucks to have the hookah relit. Of course I didn't find that out until after he had completed the action and was looking for more money. Makes we wonder if he took advantage of the situation, but I won't come to a conclusion on that. The food was typical bar food, nothing special. The shots were likely mid-shelf quality, we also shared a bucket of Coronas amongst us four. Our bill was very affordable at the end of the night, so I am glad we weren't racked over the coals. All and all, I had a fairly decent time at this lounge.

    highly recommend not to go to this establishment so we got chicken wings and I got club soda and we…read moredidn't like the chicken wings. There are chicken wings take like chicken nuggets. The wings are not good. We told the waitress we didn't like the wings. The police took them off and then they told us to we had to pay for them even though they were not good. I said well I'm not gonna pay for them. We tried one and we could tell how bad they were. she charged me four dollars for a bottle of water when we didn't even ask for water. You know why this place was empty is because they have no hospitality. The music is so loud you came in sync and the food is terrible and when you tell them that they try to escort you out. like whaaaat ! do not waste your time here

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    Platinum Cafe & Lounge - Cheese Quesadillas and Winge

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    Wong's Chinese Restaurant - Wings that taste like fish because they get fried in the same oil

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    The food tasted great, but it does not make up for our poor customer service experience…read more The customer service is awful. I ordered over $40 worth of food for a family of 6. We wanted to try the cheese wonton, so we got an order of 6. I picked up the order, and drove home. When we went to eat the wonton, there were only 4, which is not enough to feed the group of six. We called to let them know that 2 had been missing. The woman apologized and said they'd replace them now or credit for next visit. We told them we were too far and would appreciate the credit. A few minutes later, a gentleman called and told us we were incorrect and it was impossible for there to be 4 wonton because there were 6 wonton in all of the bags they prep. We let them know there were indeed only four due to not having enough for our party of six. Later, ANOTHER woman called to once again say it is impossible for us to have only received 4 wonton and that it may have fallen in the larger bag or even in the car (which is impossible since I tied the bag walking out of the restaurant). It's very sad to lose a customer because they insist that we were incorrect even though we did not have enough for our entire group. The restaurant will not go bankrupt due to a $3 credit and just apologizing for the mistake. The issue was not resolved, and we will not be returning.

    Worked at Chinese restaurant back-in-the-day when dishes were scratch made with a bounty of…read morevegetables. Now-a-days sickening sweet entrees, tasteless sauces, & barely a vegetable in sight force me to be a tough critic. Wong's is the best of what remains in the area. While it's not the cuisne of yesteryear, they do a good job on common dishes at a great value. Several visits & never a screw-up on the order. Sesame Chicken, General Tso's Chicken, & Pepper Steak, ordered large, containers were packed to brim, each dish had significant amount of meat. Beef LoMein was not just noodles but decent amount of meat & fair variety of veggies. Egg rolls are big and round, crispy not greasy. Fried dumpling order has 8 large dough pockets with ginger dipping sauce. $60, husband & I ate for 3 days off this order & were given free sodas to boot. Downside, they offer a very limited menu. You won't find Peking Duck, Crab Rangoon, Sweet & Sour Pork or even fortune cookies. But I'll take a few things done well over a large menu poorly executed. Take-out only.

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    Wong's Chinese Restaurant - The bill; not bad for the huge amt of food.

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    Gettin Crabby At The Crab Barn - seafood - Updated May 2026

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