Dock House Seafood & More — Restaurant in Holden Beach

I had the jerk pork chop and it was fantastic. On the other hand my brother in law got the Maryland crab cakes. I tried a piece and it was the worst I ever had. It had a very bad fishy taste to it almost like it was spoiled. It was supposed to have lumps of crab meat and the whole inside was like grounded meat. The smell was also fishy almost making him sick. As far as the service goes the service wasn’t all that great. Our drinks was only filled up 1 time throughout our experience there and never really checked on after our food was put on the table by another person not our waitress. Me and my wife got waters to drink, I got the jerk pork chop which was $16.95 and my wife’s fish and chips was $19 and some change and our daughter got a $6 meal. And somehow our bill come out to $55.02 and after adding everything up our bill should have only been $42 and some change plus tax. When our waitress come back with our bill, my brother in law tried to tell her about the crab cakes and she ignored him giving my parents their total for their bill and told us all that there was no gratuity applied in the bill and never acknowledged the complaint. As my brother in law (paying cash for the bill after trying to talk to the waitress about the crab cakes) was passing the cash to her she grabbed the money and he said I got the change for it she never acknowledged him and walked off with the cash and when she brought the change she again stated that “I don’t know if y’all heard me before but I did not add gratuity in to the bills” and walked off and never returned. Going back to me and my wife’s bill adding all of our meals up came to be around $42 adding taxes 42X7% would only bump the bill up to roughly $46-$47. So where did the extra $5-$6 come from? The service as explained was not the best, the fish and chips my wife got she said was pretty good but it’s hard to mess that up. Crab cakes again were the worst I have ever ate. Wait time was an hour which could be anywhere but the waitress seemed very rude. My mother asked if they served white fish and the waitresses response was we serve this (grabbed the menu and read over it in her head and never said anything else). As we were walking to our vehicle there was commotion about someone being fired and telling someone to clock them out and tell them their time. Didn’t seem like a good family restaurant but rather an old seafood place with a bunch of drama happening people...

My family and I spent a week in Holden Beach from July 24th to July 31st. During this stay we visited the Dock House 3 times. Once for lunch and twice for dinner. The lunch and our first dinner visit were quite good. Also, their bar drinks are priced extremely fairly and have quite the punch to them, if you know what I mean. The staff was friendly, and attentive as they could be for being short staffed. The food arrived quickly and was very good. However, on our third visit we arrived at around 4:30 and were told that there would be a wait. This seemed odd as most of the tables were empty, but the food and drinks are excellent so we felt a small wait isn't a big deal. They took our phone number and we sat down by the seafood market, not far from the hostess who said that she would call us over but we would also get a text to our phone. After about a 20 minute wait, we received our text that our table was ready. My wife approached the hostess who seemingly forgot who we were in the past 20 minutes and asked if we wanted to wait for a table. Perplexed, my wife showed her the text that the table for "Ice Party of 8" was ready. As it turns out, the hostess gave our table away to a party of 7... who were sitting right next to the hostess.. who claimed to have my last name. They sat very quietly and snickered amongst themselves. They did clear our another spot for us but we had to wait another 10 minutes for it while they let the table stealers order their food and drinks. I don't own a restaurant, I don't want to own a restaurant. However, I feel in this situation the appropriate thing to do would be for the hostess to ask the people she seated previously to verify their identity and ask them to leave or return them to their place in line or create one for them. You just don't let someone steal another parties table and then really do...

I hate to write this review because from referrals from friends, this should have been my favorite place while scoping out our new vacation house town. Honestly, though, from the hostess' terrible customer service, I should have known disappointment was ahead. I arrived with my parents and elderly grandparents and had to resist asking this young lady if she had a problem when she treated my 83 year old grandfather like a pest for asking for a table. (Seriously?? He's an adorable sweet old man, wipe the scowl off your face) We got seated faster than expected only to order and find out "because it's off season" over half of what our table wanted/ordered was 86d. We settled on second and third choices for items and waited for our food. I ordered a wedge salad the she crab soup, and it was probably the worst I've ever had. Too sweet, too runny, and so lacking in any crab contents or flavor im not sure they can call this anything other than pink, cinnamon, milk soup! (GROSS!) The rest of the table agreed the food was "pkay at best". (The blacked fish my husband got was the only redeeming dish) Our server never cleared plates, and we sat with mess in front of us for far longer than we should. (Long enough for us to stack our plates neatly and wait 10 to 15 mins longer). He also never did a check back on our food because I would have asked to have my soup replaced. By the time he came back, I just wanted to pay and leave. My family and I are all ex service industry, and us leaving a 20% tip was our way of insulting you. This place better get it together before peak season. Starting with that brat at...