The Wharf - Holden Beach — Restaurant in Shallotte

We have eaten at every proprietor that has served the public from this location on the ICW, here in Holden Beach, over the last 30+ years. Initially as visitors on vacation, and now as locals since moving here in 2013. Betty's Waterfront, Lou Lou's Waterfront Grille, and now SmacNally's have all operated out of this waterfront location. SmacNally's menu, as of July 5th, 2025, has been trimmed, but still offers enough variety to satisfy the palette of most beachgoers. Our last visit shone a spotlight on the positives as well as a couple negatives, and one negative that has remained throughout the history of the physical building itself. First, the the positives, the food. There were four in our party this time around, and I will list our choices. As an appetizer, we chose to order two of the Green Fried Tomato platters. Each platter contained 4 of these southern favorites and were topped with a tart but delicious sauce, as well as a dollop of pimento cheese. They were enjoyed by all four. Three of us ordered a side salad as one of our 2 sides. The salad was a premium side as noted on the menu. As a side salad, I am accustomed to a small, sparsely offering, with mostly lettuce and maybe a couple of tomatoes, onion slices, and perhaps a crouton or two. However, the side salds we received were quite large, containing lettuce, cherry tomatoes, croutons, grapes, red onion slices, with a choice of dressing. Our main entrees consisted of three of the blackened shrimp platters, which consisted of a generous portion of shrimp, hushpuppies, and as our second side, we chose a baked potato. The shrimp was spicy but not overly spicy. The hushpuppies were of the sweeter variety, and the baked potato had good texture but was on the cool side so that the butter would not readily melt. The other member of our party chose the Mahi Mahi with the blackened shrimp. His only complaint was he received fried shrimp, not blackened. They remedied the mistake by leaving the fried shrimp and bringing him an order of the blackened, charging for only the latter. He remarked that the Mahi Mahi was excellent, as was both varieties of shrimp. Overall, we were each well pleased with our meals, stating only amongst ourselves, that the baked potatoes could have been hotter. The entrees, along with the location on the ICW, with outdoor seating, were among the positives. On this occasion we dined inside due to the inclement weather, with tropical storm Chantal approaching. This leads me to discuss the negatives. The biggest negative is the noise. The seating straight on and to the right of the entrance is overwhelming. To be heard across the table, one must almost shout. I has always been this way througout this restaurant's history, regardless of owners. One reason, I believe, is the central location of the kitchen. I am of the opinion that proper placement of acoustic panels, perhaps the ceiling or corners of the dining area might fix the issue. The noise really is the one big negative. May I suggest you ask to be seated in the seating area on the left to be somewhat insulated from the noise. The only other issue we experienced, and it may be due to new servers not familiar with the seating map, but we had four different meals brought to our table before receiving our actual order. It wasn't a real problem, but did get a little aggravating as it continued on. As locals, we try to always cut our local restaurants some slack because of the availability of staff and the fact that the large number of diners during season can, if the staff is new, be a bit overwhelming. We want to see our local establishments do well during season so as to enable them to be available for the locals during the off season. Overall, I would give SmacNally's an 8 out of ten. They just need to fix the...

I’ll start with the positives: 1.) the location, directly on the ICW, is great! 2.) our server was very apologetic and did her best to make the most of an otherwise poor dining experience. 3.) the shrimp platters we got were quite good.

Now, to the negatives: 1.) we initially ordered two baskets of hush puppies. They were delivered to the wrong table. I watched the host take them from our server who was brining them over, our server point directly at our table, and then the host deliver them to another table. When he realized the mistake (not a big deal—it happens), he then proceeded to blame it on the server not using table numbers. 2.) 10-15 minutes after placing our entree order, we were told that the kitchen was completely out of fish. We adjusted our order. When we asked about peel ‘n’ eat shrimp, we were told they were also out of those. We ended up ordering 5 fried shrimp platters, a veggie wrap with fries and a kids fried shrimp plate with fries. When our order came out, we were brought 5 fried shrimp platters with fries and the veggie wrap with pasta salad. We were told that they used all the shrimp on the platters and asked whether chicken strips would be okay for the kids meal. This was upsetting to our daughter, who was looking forward to shrimp, but with no other choice, we took them and gave our daughter shrimp from our platters. When the chicken strips came, they were brought out with sweet potato fries. Another table was told that they were out of fries, which presumably is why this substitution was made. 3.) At the end of our meal, we heard the host come over and comp at least some, if not all, of another party’s meal. We were given no such offer.

Needless to say, we won’t soon be back. Which is a shame for a restaurant in such an...

I usually don’t go out of my way to write reviews, but I had to share our experience. My family visited here to eat because of previously visiting what it used to be “Betty’s” for years. We have been visiting Holden Beach altogether for many years and this is definitely by far the worst place we have eaten.

You can 100% tell they use frozen food products (especially burgers), all food was mediocre and either burnt or no flavor, and the service was not good. Our waitress was very nice, but she was not meant for that position. At least 2 out of the 6 plates received were wrong and then my mother’s order was completely forgotten on her end as far as placing it to where she had to wait at least 20 or so minutes after all of ours arrived. We know it was forgotten because she ordered the same thing as two other people and hers magically took way longer.

But what I can’t get over is the food quality for what they charge. For example I ordered the fried shrimp with rice and hush puppies. I could tell the shrimp was not fresh, the hush puppies were burnt and the rice was god awful (which is a $2 up charge by the way) which means it cost me $22 for a horrible plate of food that should’ve been priced for like $15. Even the appetizer we received which was the “crab” dip had not one piece or lingering of crab. It was just pure cheese.

I felt so terrible for my dad for paying for everyone’s meal and not one thing was good realistically except maybe my sister’s pasta salad.

The only reason I’m giving this place even 2 stars and not 1 is because of the atmosphere, cool karaoke scene and cleanliness. BUT they definitely need to do better with their food because it was abysmal. We wondered why on a holiday weekend the place was almost empty and now...