Sunset Grille & Raw Bar — Restaurant in Duck

This place seems to be a well-established dining tradition in Duck. We've been to Duck 3 times and this place always has plenty of patrons. It's large, with upstairs and downstairs dining rooms and an outdoor bar, overlooking the sound. A nice place to take in a sunset, for sure. If you go here, stay outside if possible.

The interior is dated. The surfaces are all old and tired. The wall to wall hotel-style carpet is a strange choice, fitting for the 90s. Everything from the bowls to the tables and lighting is dated. You can see the general style of the interior in the photo - a great view (it was rainy that night) for sure, but basically no effort to make the inside of the place inviting in 2019.

We got here around 6:30 on a rainy Sunday evening and there was no wait for a party of 3. There were 7 employees standing at the front desk chatting and cleaning menus. It was a slow night and I'm sure they are staffed appropriately in case it's busy. Our server Todd was friendly, like a car salesman. He seemed most interested in running up a high bill. He rattled off some 40 dollar dishes and at one point asked me to open up the menu so he could point to something. When I asked if they could make a burger, which isn't on the menu, he suggested we might want to go to another restaurant (he suggested their other restaurant, Fishbones). That was a first, I've never had a server suggest I might want to leave. It's easy to run up a large tab here - a house salad and a bowl of clam chowder cost a total of $17. The salad ingredients were good but the kitchen put it on a warm plate and the ranch dressing was watery. The clam chowder was really good after I added salt. With the salt, served in a modern style bowl, instead of the dated turquoise dish in front of me, the clam chowder would be a classy serving at any upscale restaurant.

My wife got a caesar salad with mahi mahi, which was about $19. The fish was cooked perfectly. The salad had too much dressing.

Overall I don't recommend it. But if we went back, I'd get a fish dish and sit outside. Which means going on a night when it's not rainy. A general thought is this place is a behemoth in the Duck dining community that has little need or desire to spend money on upgrading its aesthetics because it's making a killing due to menu prices and...

I've been coming to duck NC for years and years now and always stay in the same house near Sunset Grille. They've been our go to when we don't feel like cooking a meal. We tried it three times during our couple week stay this year and each try was worse than the previous. If 0 stars was an option it's what my last couple visits would amount to.

The first two times over half of our meal was spent waiting for the check at the end. There were constantly 3-4 people standing at the computer trying to figure something out. Was very obvious that no one was trained well enough with the system and management wasn't around to help get the issues solved. I don't want to spend my vacation waiting on your undertrained staff.

The last visit was the one that made sure we won't return though. We had walked from previous shops down the road with drinks and ice cream because we knew we'd be waiting awhile to be seated since it was prime dinner time. The two ladies at the door wouldn't even take our name or answer how long it'd be to get seated until we would throw out our food and drinks. I told them we'll go to the deck seating instead and they followed us saying we had to leave unless we threw it out immediately. We went back to the parking lot and finished what we had and then put our names in at the deck away from the two nagging employees. They however watched until we went back in and made sure to mention to our waiter that we needed to "be watched" as we could be disruptive. At this point I should've left as I came to have a nice meal not be monitored and nagged by your rude hostesses. We had already waited about an hour at this point though and our other options for dinner were slim to none.

Long wait times, less menu options, and rude staff. Get it back together Sunset Grill. Maybe I'll try again in a few years if the restaurant still exists, but wouldn't surprise me if they go out of business. I DO NOT...

Out most recent experience was a total disappointment. From the seating to the service, it seems clear the management is not training their staff on how to do the job. The hostess first tried to seat us in as far from the windows as possible despite their being several tables available by the windows. The waiter did not let us wait for one of our guest who was using the restroom before taking our drink and appetizer order. I asked for a water with no lemon and yet the water was served with lemon. The calamari fries tasted like frozen fish sticks. They were disgusting. We had five people at our table and yet the server only brought out three plates. We had to ask for the additional two but he took more than five minutes to bring the two out. When he did, one had visibly noticeable food on it yet he put it in front of one of our guests and did not offer to replace it. When he brought out the meal he almost dumped it on two of our guests as he couldn’t handle the heat of the dish and then complained about it. He completely forgot the salad one guest ordered, a Caesar salad, and then asked what type of dressing for the salad. Hello, it’s a Caesar salad. He checked on us one time after that, never asking if we want anything else. He tried taking away plates of food we were still working on. At the beginning he asked if the check would be one or split. I said one and gave a hand signal pointing to me to indicate I would be taking care of the bill. When he brought the final check he started to put it down between two of our women guests and then rudely reached across the table when I stated I would take the check. He called me “bud” when he brought back the receipt. Trust me, I do not look like a “bud” person. This certainly was not the experience we have had in past summers but I will not be back this summer. I left a $5 cash tip and probably should not have been that generous. Total...