Backyard Bayou - Livermore

This restaurant has a lively atmosphere with plenty of televisions, making it a great spot to watch sports. The tables are covered with paper, perfect for those enjoying shrimp buckets. We ordered the Soft Shell Crab Salad and the Oyster Po Boy with Cajun Fries. The soft shell crab was perfectly fried and the mixed green salad was fresh. The Oyster Po Boy had lightly breaded oysters and tasty slaw on the roll. The Cajun fries were delicious with a great flavor. Overall, a solid restaurant with a variety of offerings worth trying again.

Ambiance: The inside decor has a nice, rustic feeling with lighting on the darker side. A plus: the location has a fully stocked bar. A minus: the seating is very close and a bit crowded. Service: The service was very good overall. We had a large party of 11 people plus a toddler, showed up at 4:15 pm on a Sunday afternoon; were placed on a wait list we were initially advised of over the phone that we could not do, and then were advised to come back an hour later. When we returned, we were advised it would be at least another half hour if we wanted to sit together, so we broke our party up and sat at separate tables. Once seated, everything was relatively smooth and our server answered all questions and was overall attentive to our needs. Food: You expect to pay on the higher end for this type of dinning experience. We ordered the Bayou Bucket with King Crab legs, crawdad, and headless shrimp, pluss 2 lobster macs, a gumbo, a side of rice, corn, and steamed veggies, plus 2 fountain drinks. This came out to over $200, but again, expected. The temperature of our different items were fine, and presentation great, but the was frozen, not fresh, and it was noticeable. I would not recommend the lobster mac...it did not have any flavor. Overall, it was pleasant experience that we had learned about from an Instagram posting. Try it once, but there are other similar restaurants throughout the Bay Area I would go to before revisiting this location.

Went to eat dinner with some friends on a Wednesday night and it wasn't as packed as I expected it to usually be. Ordered 2 lbs of shrimp garlic parm fries and I'd say it's either they changed their recipe or we just got a bad batch. The sauce for the seafood boil was too watery and lacked flavor even when I tried to dip the shrimp in the bag. I don't remember the sauce being like this so I was pretty sad about this seafood boil dinner. One a plus side garlic parm fries was pretty good! Also, we ordered lychee soju cooler and it was surprisingly good!

Ever since we attended the awesome Yelp Elite Event at Backyard Bayou, my husband and I have been coming here on the regular, so I decided to update my review. We checked in via Yelp and the wait time was pretty accurate. The restaurant is on the smaller side and the tables are stacked pretty close together, leaving very little room between you and other guests. This is my least favorite thing about Backyard Bayou. We ordered the Selfie Bucket with Shrimp, Mussels Clams. It also comes with corn, potatoes and sausage. Unfortunately, our sausage this time was left out of our bag and I had to ask our server, Ivan, to rectify this. The potatoes were also inedible and about a half dozen of our mussels did not open which means they were not good. The best part of our meal was definitely the Sazerac (an Old Fashioned made with Sazerac Rum) and the beignets.

We used to love coming here but the price for the Dungeness Crab each piece is $55 and it was a total rip off. The top shelf was missing where you can enjoy the crab fat and the crab doesn't even weigh around 2lbs at all. Like $55 for one small Dungeness Crab, seriously??? And the sausages were cut thinly and too small. Increasing their prices too much but quality and quantity is becoming poor.