The Jolly Roger Restaurant — Restaurant in Kill Devil Hills

Surprised at 7pm on a Monday after Labor day theres a 20 minute wait. But with family from visiting from the UK for their first time in KDH, we just got in from VB. Wanted to take them somewhere nearby. I had misgivings. During the wait we attempted to look around in the gift shop but kept moving out of the way for the Hostess + incoming diners making their way. 18 mins later our table was up. Get to table, waitress comes reasonably quick. Im from VB, order an OBX crush and a cup of she crab to compare. I noted for my she crab to come out before my food. Then attempted to order an oyster shooter and the waitress looked at me as if I was purple. Wasnt the anguage barrier, it was clear they didnt do them cuz this girl has no idea. Once she finally understood, told her not to worry about it. If they dont serve them, I could wait to get one elsewhere. So our party of 4 finally gets their order in once my FIL find a beer on the drink menu that IS in stock. In a reasonable time the drinks come. Im presented with the SADDEST looking Crush Ive ever seen. A faint scum of ice floating at the top but whatever, I just wont order another where id kind of wanted to throw back 2 or 3 with my meal. 2 beers come, one for my husband + one for my FIL. One beer in a glass and the one for my FIL in a plastic cup. We couldnt figure out why. The difference was definitely noted. My MIL had ordered coffee but we had to sit awkwardly and wait the waitress to come around again to ask for cream and sugar. Still, nothing wild, it was still busy enough but now the little strikes are beginning to add up. By this point too we noticed the music in the restaurant had randomly just stopped and never came back on which was a bummer because my husband and I were singing and humming along to. Another little but arbitrary strike. A few minutes later side salads come. I get it, a little side salad is quick to make but it was still a couple minutes before I got my cup of She Crab. Now everyone does She Cran differently so i wont fault them for not loading it to overflow with crab meat but it was way too salty. I barely get a couple bites in to decide that and now yhe food is coming. Refer to that i asked for my soup to come before food. My manicotti is ok. Better than something I can get from the frozen aisle of my local grocer? NO. Again i can deal as long as my in laws enjoy their meal. My FIL asks for some malt vinegar for his caesar salad. As an American this was admittedly new to me but it was something he obviously was requesting to enhance his entire salad to enjoy. Here's where the real issue begins. It's a simple request. This is a beach town, though not on the table surely the JR has malt vinegar. 5 mins, 10 mins goes by. Waitress returns to meander to take the order of 2 people who came in after us. Naturally when done she will come to check on us as our body language indicates we are still waiting on the malt vinegar. Waitress quickly takes their order but proceeds to carry on a casual conversation. One that indicated she's leaving in a couple days being an eastern euro summer worker. Something many businesses take advantage of down here, that's well known. But what my husband and I agreed on was that clearly she didn't give a fig cuz she's leaving soon. So my husband goes to ask the bus boy if he can just grab a bottle of malt vinegar and he bluntly points and says we have to wait for our server. I hear that and stand up, walk over to the table and apologize for interrupting the casual conversation but if we could please get the malt vinegar we asked for! A minute later she comes back with OIL. At this point for the sake of the table he just takes it cuz Im ready to go to the Hostess. At this point I'm put off my meal entirely. Ask for bill, we pay we go. I forego the ornament + tshirt i was gonna buy. Hostess on the way out tries to give us a breakfast deal which my knee jerk response was "we WON'T ever be...

Our party had 7 people in it. We waited almost 2 hours for our food and a member of our party decided to ask the manager how much longer it would be because it was supposed to be my sister's Bachelorette party and we were getting very bored and tired as it was now almost 9 at night and we were seated at about 7 which ill say we were seated fast but very pointlessly considering the extreme wait for food. Food finally comes out and we get our checks no discount of any kind which no big deal I guess but would've been nice considering the terrible wait but we had a coupon for half off an appetizer. They come back saying I got one not covered but I double checked and it doesn't say it anywhere on the menu nor the coupon some are not included. We mentioned this to the waitor and he said the new menus dont mention it and he was sorry but unwilling to apply the discount even then. The same member from our party talked to the manager about it because we were all pretty upset and tired at this point at such a waste of money and time and this man straight up lied and said we never said anything beforehand about the long wait on our food and the menu says there are restrictions but refused to show us where it said that. Then a woman stepped in and got extremely rude and nasty with the member of our party and we all just left. So ridiculous. Icing on the cake was the fact that we never were offered an apology. They picked up the tables around us (we were the last ones there waiting) getting ready for some club thing while we were still waiting for our food to just arrive. We all live pretty close and have already let everyone we know not to come here because of how terrible the customer service is and how nasty we were treated. Ruining my sister's special night. Lost lots of customers. I can honestly say that this is the worst restaurant i've ever been too seeing as to how on top of everything the food was very over priced and not of good quality after all the grief we were caused. My sister is also the manager of a similar restaurant and said this was the most poorly managed and sorry excuse for a resteraunt she's ever been too. We almost canceled our food order halfway through waiting and just went somewhere else and we all said last night we desperately wish we had just done that. In response to the GM's response. Theyre are completely downplaying the full experience. We were seated about 7 15 and didn't get our apps until 45 minutes later and we didnt get our meals until almost 9. I was tracking also and updating my husband by text about what was happening since he was wondering why we were still just waiting for our meals and can post them here if you'd like for proof. Also the member of our party who complained was not me personally but she wanted to stand up for all of us so she came up to complain about the experience and she didn't raise her voice one bit until the manager started lying to us about our experience and it was by barely anything at all so saying she was yelling is definitely exaggerating. I was standing right there watching the whole thing go down. Again the menus said nowhere some were not included so showing us after the fact a list out of the back somewhere where we couldn't see it would have done nothing. Also I find it odd that even a new manager wouldn't know not to lie and to not even offer an apology.( Also I added some details to my previous review to respond to the GM so this happened about a...

My son and I had stopped here for burgers during a spring visit to OBX and decided to return for dinner tonight. Upon our arrival through the “main entrance”, we were guided through a maze of empty tables and a room apparently used for storage, before being seated right on top of another 6-top, despite the restaurant being no more than 25% full. The host asked if this table would be ok, as if to acknowledge that it wasn’t, and then made it a special point to tell me my server’s name. The server should introduce themselves…why would the host need to tell me this information unless anticipating that I would need to shout it across the room in the case he never showed up to take our order.

Alas, this was not the case as our server practically bumped into the host to take our drink orders before we had even looked at the menu. When I told him that I’d like a moment to look at the cocktails (there were probably 20-30 on the menu), he stood there, mouth agape, as though this was the most bizarre thing he had ever heard. After an uncomfortable pause, he finally realized that I wanted maybe like, literally 3 minutes and offered to bring a water while I decided. When he returned, very quickly, I succumbed to the pressure and ordered one of the choices. He then told me that “I like the painkiller” and again stood there as though I was expected to do something. Very confusing.

We ordered our food after that, wings, burger, chicken parm. All arrived within 2 minutes of each other, the latest dish arriving 6 minutes after we first ordered. This kitchen is clearly just pumping and dumping their tickets and nobody is instructing them how to fire courses.

The food was not good. The chicken parm was especially bad — cheap jarred sauce, unmelted cheese on top of a weird kind of big chicken finger. I’d say it was the work of cheap foodservice ingredients and “chef Mike”, but I didn’t confirm that with my own eyes. I’ll have to rely on my years of experience and French culinary degree.

All of this I might have been able to endure had our table not been magically transformed into a 10 top — myself, my son, and the 8 flies that were nesting on the windowsill next to our table who joined us for our meal. It could have actually been a 16 to 20 top, but unfortunately, a few of the fly’s family members had been laid to rest on the sill prior to our arrival. It was positively revolting.

The cherry on top of the sundae was the $20 we were charged for a single cocktail and single Pepsi. Had I known the price of the cocktail, I wouldn’t have ordered it in the first place. I imagine many would do the same and is the reason that the prices aren’t printed on the menu.

I would recommend finding somewhere cleaner to eat, with fresher food — like a gas station or a maybe even a motel lobby vending...