Rundown Cafe — Restaurant in Kitty Hawk

I have been coming to Rundown Cafe for well over 10 years and the first time I have ever been disappointed was this week. I’m sure that the place has had numerous owners since I’ve been a patron, but it has always been fairly consistent for those 10 years. My two favorite items on the menu were always the rundown soup and the tsunami salad. A few years ago the rundown soup was renamed to “Rundown Chowder”. The dish itself was unchanged so the slight name change was something I was able to adapt to. The light, tomato-ey broth with sweet potato, white fish, and lots of spices is the Rundown Soup that I grew to love. Upon my arrival this week, I could hardly contain my excitement for my first bite of Rundown Soup. Out comes the soup, and I stare into a bowl of what looks like creamy clam chowder with coconut flakes. My heart sunk. I’m an optimistic person, so I tried it. Unfortunately it was not something I was able to eat. I’m not sure whose idea it was to change the ever-loved soup of my people, but they need some serious questioning. Thankfully our server was super sweet and offered to take it off the bill after we described how this is just not what we expected the Rundown Chowder to be. Since the tsunami salad is no longer available, I opted for the shrimp tacos. They were fine, not as fresh as the Rundown Cafe of years past. Another member of my party had the coconut shrimp. In years prior, this dish was (as so it seemed) made in house, served with a tasty mango chutney type dipping sauce. The dish we received seemed more reminiscent of the coconut shrimp one might pick up in the Food Lion frozen aisle. Not bad, but again, not the Rundown that many have come to love. Overall, the one thing missing for me is the unique, Caribbean flair that the menu and establishment once had. I fear that today’s Rundown is just not the special place that we have...

Excellent service, but food was a bit disappointing. Went here as a group of 4 for a Friday night dinner, had Nachos Supreme for a starter (delicious!) and then I had the Hawaiian Poke bowl for main. The tuna and rice were great but everything else, not so much. Ginger peanut edamame was ok but didn't have much flavour, ginger slaw wasn't anything special, and the "crispy wontons" were absolutely not wontons and more like just crackers. I assume they just deep fried scraps of a wonton wrapper. I noticed in the Asian Sesame Noodles on the menu they're called "wonton crisps". This must be the same thing, so I'm confused why the poke bowl on the menu has "crispy wontons" instead of wonton crisps as these are two entirely different things. I'm also a big fan of wakame and wished there'd been more of it, maybe to replace the ginger slaw.

For dessert, I had some of the Pineapple Upside Down Cake which was absolutely delicious. I feel like the poke bowl was just an exception in an otherwise good menu as the other people in my group seemed to enjoy their meals very much, although another person in my group had the BBQ burger and the tomato slice in it was obviously stale. Our waiter (who was very lovely and superbly friendly - thank you!) also spilled half of the fries when serving the burger. The owner came to apologise to us personally and they prepared us a new burger to take away which was very kind of them and I commend the staff on how they handled this.

The two stars I'm giving are so low because of how disappointed I was in my main, but I would certainly visit again and just avoid the poke bowl in the future. I liked the variety of the menu and would love to try the other dishes another time, and the staff and service...

Started off by the hosts at the door! She only filled half the tables inside while the line built up outside telling everyone there's a 30 minute wait. Finally got seated the waiter took forever just to get our drinks order...comes back says no lemonade and no frozen drinks cuz ice maker is broke. Waited forever for food to come out and food was bad. My stomach hurt after eating. After eating went to the bathroom looked into the kitchen and the staff was eating from customers bowls as they where preparing food 🤮. This is when I went to find the manager to correct this from happening in a restaurant. The manager said he is short handed and he has to bartend tonight. Told him if I seen one of my employees being unsafe inside my restaurant I would fire them immediately. His response he disagrees and wouldn't fire them and when I own a restaurant I could do that. This response from someone supposed to be the manager demonstrates that he or the restaurant doesn't care about pubic safety. I get down from the bar to sit at the table forever again for the wait to pick up the check so I can get outta here....the table beside us said they were waiting for over an hour just to pay. I take my own check up and see the waiter running same cards like eight times....he had so many ppl wanting to pay he doesn't even know who's bill is who's and running same cards over and over... really angry so I go back upstairs to get the manager to correct this and he said he cant leave the bar...is he a bartender or a manager? I can only hope I wasn't charged multiple times for the same meal. Also, side note there was charges on my bill that weren't even ours. This restaurant is...