The Salty Dog Cafe — Restaurant in Hilton Head Island

Without a doubt the worst dining experience I’ve ever had. Service was rude, management went out of their way to make us feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. We first called to place an order for takeout. They told us we had to go to the restaurant to place a take out order. After going to the restaurant they told us they were too busy for takeout and if we wanted to eat we had to sit and stay. The bartender then told us that The Salty Dog was actually uncommonly slow for August. We had our service dog with us at the outside bar, the restaurant is literally called The Salty Dog Cafe, and management came up to us and said we have to leave because we have a dog. We explained he was a service animal and that we tried to order takeout but the restaurant wouldn’t let us so they said we could eat at the picnic tables with our dog. 2 minutes later another manager came to us and said we had to leave because of our dog. This was our third time being moved and told something different by staff. It was rude and incredibly inconsiderate.

The food itself was disgusting. My shrimp tasted like bleach and was mushy, the soup was cold, the fish was overcooked, and the staff threw the meals on the table, with no regard for who ordered what or any kind of decorum.

This was, without a doubt, the worst dining experience I have ever had. My family and I have been life-long fans and customers of The Salty Dog but because of how horrible this evening was I will never go back to this restaurant again. Do better, treat your customers with an ounce of...

DO NOT LET THE DOG PICS FOOL YOU! THEY ARE NOT DOG FREINDLY! Went there on 27 January with our small pup. Drove an hour because the food looked good and to have a day. Paid $9 just to get into the area where the restaurant is. Got there and they said they don't allow dogs, but we can order to-go meals and go across the parking lot. When my wife confronted the manager, the one working on 27 January 2024 at approximately 1430-1500 hours, he said it is on the website, no dogs allowed. After looking through the entire pets picture section, we finally found it at the very bottom of the page. Why am I having to look through the entire pets pictures in order to know that my dog is not welcome? From their website: "Ultimately the good dog owners suffered from the actions of the bad dog owners and we posted the No Dogs Allowed signs in 1989. Why? Because we feel that we have a responsibility to provide our customers with a clean, peaceful and safe place to dine." Funny because we went to Skull Creek right after leaving, and there were over 10 dogs there, and none of this happened. Sounds like it's an establishment problem to me. First impressions mean something, and this was a horrible first impression. DO NOT PORTRAY YOU LOVE DOGS IF YOU DON'T SUPPORT THEM! DO NOT SELL DOG BANDANAS AND ASK PEOPLE TO POST PICS OF YOUR DOGS ON YOUR WEBSITE, IF THEY'RE NOT ALLOWED AT YOUR...

Underwhelmed. This is our first time to Hilton Head and decided to check out the Baynard Ruins. Since we ended up paying $9 just to get into the area, we figured we would look around for other things to do. We happened across the Salty Dog Cafe area. Looks like there were supposed to be other shops, but seemed like it was mostly the Salty Dog Cafe and store and maybe one other place. Anyway, we decided to check out the cafe since it was lunch time and we were in the area. The place was fairly busy and there was a 30 min wait to eat outside, but they got us inside right away. Figured if it was this busy on a Monday in off season, it must be good.

Have to admit, I’m glad we didn’t wait 30 min for outdoor seating since the food was pretty underwhelming.

Appetizers: We started with some hushpuppies which ended up being like very dense donut holes instead of hushpuppies. The honey butter was hard and difficult to use.

Lunch: My husband has the shrimp Po’Boy and it was acceptable. Nothing to write home about. I had something from the daily special which was supposed to be a Pork version of a Roast Beef sandwich with Au Jus. Overall, it just had a very odd flavor to it and was really salty. I was quite disappointed.

Overall: Would not recommend. There are so many other great places to eat and for $9 just to get into the area, it was very...