Beach Tavern at King Mackerels — Restaurant in Atlantic Beach

I visited this location on Wednesday June 14 2017, around lunchtime. I came based on its word of mouth and other reviews and its length of time as a good establishment in the area. It was not busy, only three or four guests. My initial impression: lighting was dark and the televisions were loud. In my opinion the atmosphere was too dark and too loud for a lunch service. Upon entering, I was not greeted or asked to have a seat. No signage that stated to seat yourself or wait to be seated was present at the entry/ FOH. We waited for acknowledgement until I decided to ask the bartender if it was ok to seat yourself. Once seated, the bartender approached and took our drink order and was friendly. She was very nice although seemed overworked as she was waiting tables and running the bar. After looking over the menu, I decided to have the jumbo lump crab to start from the appetizer selection for $9.50 It should be noted concerning the menu: Most of the appetizers were missing portion size and adequate descriptions of preparation. The crab species was not listed, although it is assumed to be blue crab when you order jumbo lump it would be considerate and thoughtful for guests without much seafood dining experience. This really matters to me when I'm at the outer banks and coast because I am coming to establishments specifically for seafood and experience different variations on my favorite seafood recipes and dishes. No description of the crab meat being either fresh or pasteurized was listed either :( After 10 minutes of waiting the waitress brought cold jumbo lump crab meat of unknown origin and quality in a standard 2 ounce portion cup sitting in a martini glass with lettuce that was wilted. It was a very dated presentation. The crab meat was foul and had a bad smell. It was NOT fresh. This is unacceptable for a coastal North Carolina restaurant ...and they cater to fishing enthusiasts! This was too many strikes for me and I had to leave, sadly. So I paid for the app. and the beverages and left a good tip and thanked the waitress.

So...In summary my food was overpriced by nine-fold, poorly presented, and was served with no clarified butter. I had to ask for the butter. For a two ounce portion @ $9.50 it should have exceeded my expectations and at the very least been one of the most memorable displays of lump crab I've seen. I would love to come back here and have a better experience some day. Leaving a one star review when you weren't treated rudely is wrong to me but just based off of the price vs quality I was extremely upset and felt swindled...

Great dive bar. Been stopping in for beers for years. We were in town for the holiday and decided to take some of the family to grab drinks and some food. They were apparently understaffed and service was REALLY REALLY slow. Super nice staff... they were just in the weeds and the kitchen was super backed up. The guy bartending was out of his element --- couldn't manage to help one customer without being completely distracted by other customers. Would start helping one customer and then walk away to help two other customers before coming back to help the first customer only to get distracted and go to help another customer. Literally took close to 15 minutes to get a pitcher of beer and an iced tea. We watched his do this over and over the whole time we were there.

After 45 minutes and no food, I went to check on the order (a basket of fries and some philly cheese steak egg rolls). Was told that they didn't have the egg rolls. Would have been nice to know sooner, right? She, the bartender, was super apologetic and did manage to get some fries to us pretty quickly and then offered us an order of wings that was an extra order... which was nice. The wings tasted good... but they were underdone (which is kind of gross for chicken). We appreciated the effort... finished our drinks and headed for food elsewhere.

I hated that a place I have loved for so long left such a mediocre impression on the folks I took there.

We will definitely be back for beers at some point... with our fingers crossed for...

This was the third time I had eaten at BTs. My previous 2 visits were both 5 star visits. Not so this time.

I saw my server only twice. When she took and delivered my order. Never once did she check on me or ask if I needed a drink refill.

I ordered the Reuben as I had ordered it before and it was delicious. Again, not so this time.

After I finished the first half of the sandwich, I realized something was different than my previous Reuben. So, I opened the second half a discovered the sandwich was missing thousand island dressing!

I really like this place and will return. Hopefully, management will see this review and coach up the servers and the cooking teams.

As of this writing, the price for the Reuben was $6 less on the website than what I paid at the restaurant. Also,...