Fishbones Raw Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Duck

Honestly, it takes a lot for me to offer a poor review, but the staff of Fishbones went out of their way to encourage me. We had a group of eight people who were down for our annual get together and decided to give Fishbones a try. The hostess set a reasonable expectation of 15 minutes wait to be seated and they met that expectation, but it went downhill from there. It took longer for me to get my drink order than it did for us to get our table and all I had requested was a glass of water which arrived after three requests and a good 15 minutes after everyone else received their drinks. I just chalked this up to a new season and new staff, no problem. Everyone received there order and J* of our party, said that her Clam Chowder was very good, and she's from New England. We were not so fortunate as our fish was not very good and mushier than mashed potatoes. It got worse, T didn't receive his order and after we had all eaten he finally asked the staff to just box it to go in the kitchen before they even brought it out. We suggested that since we had to leave, after an hour and a half, and Tom had not received his order that maybe they should just not charge him for his meal. After an additional 15 minutes, Tom still had not received his meal and when we asked, they said that if we weren't going to pay for the meal we weren't going to get the meal. We never demanded that Tom's meal be on the house, only suggested it as a matter of good customer service. T** ended up paying for his grilled fish sandwich. It took them 15 minutes more to bring us our bills, and three of the four tickets when incorrect, and not slightly, but way off. This is not a as much a reflection of the staff as it is of very poor management. They just didn't seem to care. I'm sorry, but I just wouldn't recommend Fishbones to anyone, even if the Clam Chowder is as good as...

DO NOT PURCHASE GIFT CARDS FROM HERE and be prepared for poor service.

Last year (2023) we experienced a very rude bar manager at sister restaurant, Sunset Bar & Grill, and instead Fishbones became our favorite restaurant when visiting the Duck area.

However, yesterday my son and his fiancé sat at the bar and wanted to order food They asked a simple question regarding a menu item. The bar tender started to reply, stopped mid sentence to engage in conversation with a waitress and then never came back to them. There were only a handful of customers at the time. They finally just got up and left.

Today my family went for lunch. The food was good, as usual. But the service was so disappointing. Our waitress was clearly distracted with whatever was happening on her cell phone, and a table near us was very frustrated with waiting for a long time to pay their bill.

I could have let the service issues pass, except that it literally took us longer to pay our bill than it did to eat. Like over 30 minutes!! DO NOT PURCHASE GIFT CARDS FROM HERE. They could not figure out how to process a gift card. We were eventually informed that they could not figure out how to process it but that they would subtract the gift card total from the bill.

We then waited far too long for the bill to be brought to us. I indicated to the waitress that, “It’s kind of ridiculous. If they are going to sell gift cards, they need to teach you how to process them.” Instead of any acknowledgment of my concern or how long we had waited, the waitress copped an attitude and told me “if the gift card won’t process, that’s not my fault!!” I had not indicated that it was her fault, and tone of her response was totally nasty.

Long story, but we certainly won’t be frequenting this place again...

Have to first say, we are a party of nine so not a small task handling our herd. That stated, we had a phenomenal experience at Fishbones.

Our server, Amerika, was fantastic. He was very personable, chatty, well versed in all aspects of the menu and offerings, and most importantly attentive. Best server we’ve had on our vacation.

The food was great. Our starters; Blackfin crab dip, calamari, queso and chips were excellent. The crab dip was creamy and flavorful, the calamari was lightly breaded and perfectly prepared (not rubbery at all). A couple clam chowders were eaten and were delicious, as was the chicken gumbo. Entrees were amazing. Our group got: a couple burgers, fried shrimp and fries, a Bucket of Bait (clams and shrimp), Shrimp Diablo pasta, two Tuna Bowls and two Blackened Ahi Tuna steaks. Everything was delicious but of note were the Tuna Bowls (spicy and wonderfully constructed) which had fantastic flavor. The Ahi Tuna steaks (both blackened) were awesome. Mine was rare and it could not have been better. The Bucket was very good; shrimp was excellent and the clams (though very small) were good as well.

This was our groups first visit to Fishbones but won’t be our last. Thank...