BY MEG VAN HUYGEN for WEEKLY VOLCANO 3/27/26 |
Sometimes you and your guy drive down a busy stroad on a rainy night and see a building with a giant red crab climbing up the front.
“What the hell was that?” he says, swiveling his head backward as you pass. “Go around the block,” you say, and he does. Sometimes the old defunct Black Angus now has a giant king crab sculpture tacked onto the facade.
Shows how much we hang out on Bridgeport Way, because Zesty Steakhouse apparently took over the building in late 2022. But whoa, hang on. I, like every avid Weekly Volcano calendar reader, know that something called Zesty Steakhouse has live music a couple of times a week. I just never made the connection that this place is what the old Black Angus turned into. Well, shit, sounds like a party. We’re doin’ it.
There are more giant crabs inside. Other than that, the vibe’s still pretty much the same as when it was Black Angus, right down to the band of boomers playing hits of the ’70s and ’80s in the downstairs bar (and expertly, might I add). We follow our ears. The bar’s decked out like a SeaGalley, with fishing nets and a big plastic shark hanging from the ceiling. Bisexual pink-and-blue lighting illuminates the stage as the rockers pump out an energetic version of “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers. Every single one of them has a fedora on. Bam, right off the bat, we’re all in.
So, this is a truly colossal menu, but don’t get stymied or confused. You’re on a mission. Steakhouse is in the name of the restaurant, but let the spirit of the gigantic decor crabs be your guide, because what you want here is seafood. But not the fish ’n’ chips or any other fried stuff. It’s the crab boil or it’s nothin’.
What they’re doing here is a Southern low-country boil, a melange of seafood with sausage, corn, and potatoes, but just like the jams from the musical grandpas on Zesty’s stage, it’s a cover version. Where the real thing would be strictly Cajun-style, seasoned with Zatarain’s or Tony Chachere’s, this rendition has a bunch more flavor options. This genre of cuisine is sometimes called Viet-Cajun, and the Seattle/Tacoma area has a few restaurants that serve it, but Zesty’s transcends the genre. There’s not much Viet happening here. This is just pan-Asian Cajun, I guess, based on a few pieces of flair mixed into the menu: Chinese-style fried rice, coconut shrimp, yum yum sauce, the house special sauce option for the seafood boil, which has Szechuan edges.
These seafood boils are made for sharing, ideally with four people minimum, and you can either build your own combo or use the prefab ones with various permutations of green or black mussels, head-on or headless shrimp, clams, calamari, crawfish, four different kinds of crab, even lobster tails. We’re a party of two and aren’t really feeling like throwing down, so we split an order of the local fave: a pound of Dungeness clusters. To our great mutual delight, we are given crab bibs with cartoon crabs on them, and they also bring us crab scissors as well as crackers. Yes, this is the way.
The crab clusters arrive in a plastic bag, all puffed up like Jiffy Pop. The sauce is in there with the crab, so everything can commingle together in the steam, a key feature of Louisiana-style seafood boil restaurants. Because we’re sharing a single order, we only get one little potato and one half a corn and are annoyed by this, so we make a big production out of slicing the potato in half. Come on, guys, look at us. We’re tall, huge people. Give us another potato.
The Dungeness clusters are killer, although it’s hard to mess those up, to be fair. Of the available sauces, we choose classic Cajun, and it’s super flavorful. When it comes to heat, my guy always orders the spiciest possible option, and I think I’ll try to go hard and meet him in the middle at three stars out of four, and whoops, it’s still really hot. This is my fault and not at all a complaint. I get a side of dippin’ butter to mellow out the fire, no harm, no foul. Everything’s better with butter. Boyfriend, meanwhile, is thrilled across the board with everything that’s happening.
The cocktail menu has like 50 options, and I choose a tropical white sangria with pinot grigio, Cointreau, rum, and three different fruit juices in there. It’s a sugar bomb, but I don’t mind. It somehow feels on brand. We’re seated at the neon-lit bar in our plastic bibs, tools in hand, diligently working on our crab legs to the dulcet strains of the men in hats covering “Tempted” by Squeeze, and I gaze around to take in the ridiculousness of it all. This place is silly. I’m so glad we went around the block.
Per their website, it looks like Zesty is co-owned by the folks who own Sapporo Steakhouse, a sushi/hibachi place just down the road. Knowing this makes me more inclined to try the steaks next time, as unsilly as that seems. One of the co-owners, Max Lee, is set to open a Korean BBQ and Chinese hot pot restaurant in the old Salamone’s location in University Place, although the website doesn’t say when. This guy sure likes his mashups.
Oh yeah, and Zesty also IDs as a sports bar. I learned this because apparently, per a review, some diners were chagrined when all hell broke loose in the bar as the Seahawks won the Super Bowl, and it was reportedly too loud. (FWIW, that was happening outside of Zesty Steakhouse too, if I remember correctly.) Damn, this place has everything.
Although Zesty suffers from the restaurant version of dissociative personality disorder, steakhouse, Cajun seafood house with some Asian splashes, and karaoke plus live music venue, it’s still a total party, as prophesied, and I don’t see any reason why it needs to pick an identity. Admittedly, it’s hard to imagine having a serious sit-down steak dinner here because of the decor. Like, I hope it’s not rude to tell people not to take a restaurant seriously, but once again, I harken back to the gigantic crabs. I don’t think these folks take themselves too seriously either. And that’s why Zesty is so dang fun. We’ll be back with more people.
Zesty Steakhouse
9905 Bridgeport Way SW
Lakewood, WA 98499
(253) 300-7993
Zestycajungrill.com
@zestylakewood7968
