The Froggy Dog — Restaurant in Avon

The Froggy Dog is where the ordinary becomes holy. On Wednesday and Friday evenings from six to eight, Kim Kalman’s voice drifts from the porch like a hymn. It settles into the breeze, floats over tables, and mingles with the laughter of children pointing out lightning bugs in the distance. Families reunite beneath the golden hush of twilight; friends trade stories like treasures; strangers become kin. The air is thick with the scent of hushpuppies, Oysters Rockefeller, fried chicken, and salt from the nearby sea. Dogs—gentle and hopeful—rest at their humans’ feet, patiently awaiting a piece of ribeye. Whether you arrive with salty hair or red lipstick, for a cold beer or a perfectly chilled martini, The Froggy Dog reminds us to come as we are.

This place is part of my story. My grandparents and late aunt worked here when Miss Herma owned it. Now I return with her, and she still dances—smiling at familiar faces as she twirls. The team at the Froggy Dog has taken such loving care of Miss Herma. Blake once bandaged her scraped leg with such gentleness and compassion that I will admire him forever. He and Liza helped plan her fabulous 80th birthday—one of the great joys of her life—and the entire team went above and beyond to make it a night to remember. When Miss Herma was hospitalized, The Froggy Dog sent flowers. Liza visited her in rehab. Jeremy offered rides. These are not small things. They speak to the character of a remarkable place and the people who make it so.

The food at The Froggy Dog is wonderful, with something for everybody—beautiful fresh salads, incredible pastas, and local catch straight off the boat. The desserts are Southern dreams: decadent chocolate cake, coconut cake, and key lime pie. Whatever your taste—martini, margarita, mocktail, or sweet tea—the staff serves it all with grace and a smile. They greet us warmly, adapt effortlessly when plans change, and always, always make us feel at home.

I’ve celebrated many of life’s joys at The Froggy Dog, cried over losses, and dropped by on ordinary afternoons just to say hello. It's the best—especially come karaoke night! Cheers to you, Julia, your family, and all the wonderful people who make The Froggy Dog such a special place to return to on Hatteras Island. Love you all! See you soon!

Emily

P.S. I always admire...

Sun, Aug 15th, 3-5pm.

The staff (white female since I don’t know her name) at the front need improvement. We arrived and requested a table for two, was informed it would be 15-20mins wait. We waited 31mins to be seated. During the time we were waiting, a family of eight that arrived after us got seated within 10mins. Also, just two mins before we got seated, a group of three came in and was told 30mins wait. They asked if they can wait at the bar and if they could ordered at the bar; the staff at the front said yes. That is also when she told us that we could order at the bar (AFTER waiting 29mins) and that our table will be ready in 2mins. The staff at the front needed to do better.

Luckily our server (white female, blonde hair, medium-short in height) was wonderful. She informed us that they were understaffed, only 2 servers working at the moment, which explained the long wait for taking and then serving our drink. She had common sense, got us the dinner menu when we asked for it at 3:53pm. (While we were waiting for our table, we heard the front staff that dinner is at 4pm and you can see the menu at 3:50pm. When we got seated at 3:42pm, we asked her [front staff] if we can see the dinner menu. She told us she would check and informed us the manager said the menu would be available at 3:55pm). Thank God our server had common sense.

We ordered the following: Hatteras-Style Clam Chowder: Homemade broth style chowder. It was good, a bit salty for my taste bud. It was flavorful and good amount of clam bits.

Pesto Mere Bulles: Butterfly shrimp, sautéed scallops and linguine in a creamy pesto sauce topped with walnuts. It was good. The sauce was heavy, took a few bites to get used to along with its flavor. I prefer lightness for my pesto sauce. I loved the amount of scallops and shrimps in the dish. The scallops were sautéed perfectly, sweet and tender. There was a small clump of linguine, but not a big deal. I just realized that there was no walnuts on top, not a big deal either.

Fresh flounder was cooked well, tender and seasoned well on one side. The fries was disappointing, most of them were crispy, but hollow; only few pieces had potato in them.

The front staff needed to work better. The food was good. The server helped save our...

We had a big group of 12, we ended up splitting up and having 5 sit at a smaller table in the bar area with Stacy as our waitress and the rest sat at the bar with Jeremy. Our bigger group at the bar absolutely loved Jeremy and spoke highly of his service; however, the small group did not have the same experience with Stacy. She came and took our drink order and then we sat at the table for 20-25 minutes before she ever came back with the first drink or to take our food order. It was too loud for the little one in our group so the mom took him outside while dad waited for the food to come out and he asked to take it to go. He had to box up the 3 meals himself when the food came to the table. He had also ordered a Bloody Mary, which was not good, he told Stacy and asked for a sweet tea. The tea was brought to him 45 minutes later when he was boxing up their food to leave. Another member of our smaller group mentioned to Stacy to please not charge him for the Bloody Mary since it was not to par and wasn’t drank (she also never removed the drink from the table). Stacy raised her voice with that member and then continued to treat that member poorly the remainder of the evening. She would come to the table and ignore that member, so we ended up getting our bigger group to order the drinks from the bar. When our food finally came out I decided to count how many times Stacy went to a high top on the other side of the bar area. In a span of about 20 minutes after she walked away from our table she went to the high top 6 times to check on them before ever returning to our table. When a member from the bar requested the tab from the small groups table, he was charged the incorrect tab and when he requested the detail from Stacy, she ignored him. The bartender, Jeremy had to get her to give us the detail. She brought the wrong detail. We were finally able to get the check situation resolved, thankfully. It was the worst dining experience I have ever had, our group understands long waits or mistakes as our group contains waitresses/bartenders and a restaurant owner. Jeremy was absolutely phenomenal and our entire group highly recommends him to anyone who goes in...