Kickin’Inn or The Boiling Crab, which should you choose?

We are obviously not a neutral party here, so let us be upfront about that and then be genuinely fair about it. 🦀

If you are deciding between us and The Boiling Crab, you are choosing between two restaurants doing the same Louisiana-style format, and the honest answer depends more on where you live and how you like to order than on which one is objectively better.

Where the format came from

Worth understanding, because neither of us invented it and both of us are drawing on the same tradition.

Cajuns are descendants of Roman Catholic French Canadians whom the British drove out of Acadia in the 18th century, who settled in the bayou lands of southern Louisiana. The boil, where seafood goes into one pot with spice, corn and potatoes and comes out onto a table everyone eats from with their hands, comes out of that culture.

The Vietnamese-Cajun version that both chains descend from grew up in Gulf Coast and Californian Vietnamese communities, where families already working in fishing added garlic, butter and their own spicing to the Louisiana boil. That is the lineage, and it is a genuinely good story on both sides.

Who each of us actually is

Facts rather than sales pitch.

The Boiling Crab was founded in 2004 by Sinh Nguyen and Dada Ngo, a Vietnamese husband-and-wife couple, with the first restaurant in Garden Grove’s Little Saigon in California. Nguyen’s family mainly worked as crabbers and fishermen in Seadrift, Texas. The chain has around 30 restaurants, mostly in California, and its Australian locations started operating in early 2021.

Kickin’Inn is an Australian chain. We started here, we have grown to over 30 locations across the country, and we are not a franchise of an American brand. Both origin stories are legitimate. One is an American brand that came to Australia, one is an Australian brand built here.

The practical difference, which is footprint

The Boiling Crab currently lists four Australian venues, three in Melbourne and one in Sydney, alongside their US, Shanghai and Saudi Arabian locations.

We are in over 30 locations across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory. So for most Australians outside inner Melbourne or Sydney CBD, this is not actually a choice. It is whether there is a seafood boil near you at all.

Check our locations page and see which of us is closer. If they are nearer to you, go and enjoy it.

The bit nobody admits, the sauces are similar

We are going to be straight with you, because pretending otherwise would be silly when both menus are published online.

Both chains run a Louisiana-inspired sauce line-up with a lemon pepper, a garlic butter, a Cajun spice blend, and a signature house sauce that combines them. Theirs are Rajun Cajun, Lemon Pepper, Garlic Butter and a trademarked signature that combines the three. Ours are Kajun, Garlic Kajun, Garlic Butter, Lemon Pepper and Kickin’ Sha-Bang®.

Both serve it in a bag, both put bibs on the table, both expect you to use your hands. If you have eaten at one and loved the format, you will recognise the other immediately.

So the sauce category is not where the decision lives. What differs is the structure of the menu around it.

Side by side on what we can verify

We have deliberately left gaps in that right-hand column rather than filling them with guesses. Menus and prices change, and we are not going to publish numbers about another restaurant that might be out of date by the time you read this. Check their site for their current offering, the same way you would check ours.

What we think we genuinely do well

Our honest pitch, limited to things you can verify on our own menu.

Five heat levels rather than three or four. Original is genuinely no-spice, which matters more than people expect, because it means kids, grandparents and anyone who cannot do chilli can eat the same meal as everyone else. Then Mild, Spicy, Inferno and 000 if you have something to prove.

A build-your-own bag where you pick seafood, sauce, heat and sides in four steps, choosing from whole fresh prawns, peeled prawns, half shelled mussels, baby octopus, flower cut squid, crawfish, half bay bugs, half lobster, blue swimmer crabs, mud crab halves, pipis and snow crab cluster.

And signature bags sized for groups, so you are not doing arithmetic at the table. Our full menu lays out what is in each one.

Kickin' Tip

💡 Tip Ordering for a big crew? Go half mild, half spicy across two bags so everyone gets messy at their own heat level. 🔥

The practical stuff that decides most group bookings

In our experience this is what actually settles it when more than four people are involved.

• How far you have to drive. Genuinely the biggest factor, and it is usually us on distance alone.
• Whether the fussy eater is catered for. A true no-spice option changes who can come.
• Dietary requirements. Our sauces are all gluten free, and our FAQs cover halal, dairy and vegetarian questions properly.
• Kids. We run a Kids Eat Free policy at participating venues, which is worth checking before you book.
• Birthdays. Sign up before your birthday and there is a complimentary Shrimp Martini in it, per our birthday rewards terms.
• Big groups. If it is more than a table, our functions team handles it.

None of that is a knock on anyone else. It is just the list of questions people actually ring us about.

One thing worth knowing whichever you pick

This applies at any seafood boil, ours included.

Seafood allergy is common in Australia and reactions can be severe, and a boil is by design a shared pot of crustaceans and molluscs. If someone in your group has a shellfish allergy, tell the venue when you book rather than when you sit down, and be realistic about whether a seafood boil is the right choice for that meal.

Same goes for the practical side of eating it. The NSW Food Authority has sensible guidance on handling and storing seafood, which is worth a look if you are taking leftovers home. Food Standards Australia New Zealand sets out the basics on safe cooking and handling.

Kickin' Tip

Taking leftovers home? Get them in the fridge fast and eat them the next day, not the day after. Boiled seafood does not improve with age. 🦐

So, which one

• Both chains do Louisiana-style boils with similar sauce line-ups.
• The format comes from Cajun Louisiana by way of Vietnamese-American cooking.
• The Boiling Crab was founded in California in 2004 and reached Australia in early 2021.
• They list four Australian venues, in Melbourne and Sydney.
• Kickin’Inn is Australian, with over 30 venues across seven states and territories.
• For most Australians, distance decides it before anything else does.
• Our five heat levels start at a genuine no-spice Original.
• All five of our sauces are gluten free.
• Build-your-own lets you pick seafood, sauce, heat and sides.
• Group bookings usually turn on distance, dietary options and kids.
• Tell any venue about shellfish allergies at the booking stage.
• Check both current menus rather than trusting any comparison table, including ours.

If The Boiling Crab is your local, go and have a great time. If you are anywhere else in Australia, we are probably the closest bag of Louisiana-spiced seafood to you, and we would love to have you. Our story explains how we got here, and there is almost certainly a venue nearer than you think. 🤤