Shipwrecks Taphouse & Grill — Restaurant in Kitty Hawk

Food was good. Bartender was excellent. Sharp, witty personality and attentive. Engaging with regulars and newcomers alike. Entire experience was 120% ruined as soon as the owner showed up around mid afternoon. Made a huge, loud, ugly scene about a former employee sitting at the bar (who was very pleasant to the bartender and other patrons, mind you). Owner loudley kicked the former employee out in front of everyone as a show of how "tough" he was, despite the former employee professionally stating that he respected his position of being told to leave and asking if they could just speak in private. Owner said No. I want you out!

I have no idea the history between the two (always 2 sides to a coin but apparently over the employee talking negatively about the owner. As a patron, I don't care. All I care about is my experience in the restaurant. I travel NC for work and, as a result dine out frequently. The owner was very unprofessional and inconsiderate to his bartender and other patrons by causing this huge, disruptive scene and honestly caused EVERYONE at the bar to cash their tabs and end their experience in a negative fashion. We were having a great, collective experience until "he" arrived. I don't have a problem with the owner not wanting a certain person at his establishment for whatever reason. That's his perogative. The problem is in how he conducted himself in removing said person. It's a cool location, so my first hope is the owner takes time to self reflect and realize the error in his behavior. If that isn't attainable, I hope the bartender and cooks can find another establishment, as they were top notch and deserve to work for an employer that seeks to grow rather than kill a business like this one did with his...

We ordered take out through online ordering at 6:35pm on a Thursday evening. Upon checkout it said our food would be ready an hour later (at 7:37pm). We arrived at that time and were greeted by the manager who informed us our “order had been missed” and gave us the option to either re-order through take out or to be seated “now” inside to eat. The restaurant was visibly busy but we opted to just sit inside and order as we were already there. We sat at a table and several minutes later the waitress came to our table to inform us the kitchen was “significantly understaffed” and that it wait times for food were extensive.

At that time, now after 8pm, with a 2 year old in tow, we opted to leave and ask for a refund for our original order. We went back the manager at the hostess stand again to let her know we weren’t going to be staying as our original food order was placed an hour and half prior and we were just told that it would likely be another extended amount of time until our food would arrive. She said she could put our take out order back in but it “wouldn’t change anything” in regards to the wait time. When we told her we just wanted a refund she said she would return back to us once she “figured out” how to refund us as we placed the order online.

It was our first experience attempting to dine with Shipwrecks and I can assure you, our last as well. Nothing was offered to compensate us for the inconvenience (even an offer to expedite the missed order) which resulted in us leaving restaurant to find somewhere else to eat. We certainly will not return and will be advising our large group of family we visit Kitty Hawk annually with of our experience and interaction with the...

Where do I begin? We had started our vacation in OBX and needed a place to eat. This place has a cool vibe when you walk in but it is quickly apparent that the staff is completely disorganized and the food is simply not good. After we were seated I ordered a simple draft beer. I had no idea it would be over 20 minutes before it showed up at our table. In that 20 minute span, we had an entire tray of half eaten shrimp and butter spilled on our feet and legs by a staff member who was clearing a table next to us. I went to the bathroom to clean the shrimp juice off my leg and was disappointed to find no paper towels. So I had to hold my leg under the sink and try to wash it off. This is not only awkward but embarrassing as well. Went back to the table to find my beer had still not been delivered. The food finally showed up, and 75% of it was incorrect. I normally don’t send food back but seeing as I had just washed old shrimp juice off my leg I wasn’t in the best mood and asked them to make it right. 40 minutes later the correct food came out. Not to my surprise it was nice and cold and honestly just not good. They did try to make it right by giving us a couple of beer coozies. This is rather insulting seeing as if I had a cold drink in the first place a coozie would make sense. But since my beer was warm it was comical at that point. PS: if you need to use the bathroom just hope it can be done standing up. I hope this is a one off experience here but judging by other people’s looks it seems it may be a common occurrence. Hopefully the butter comes out of my...