Salty Dog's Seafood & Grill — Restaurant in Maggie Valley

Never like to leave this type of review but it is what it is. My wife and I were in Maggie Valley for my birthday this past weekend and decided to give this place a try. It had decent reviews, was conveniently located to our room, and had the seafood I had so been craving! We went in the early evening hours and found that the dining room was completely unoccupied (everyone was on the bar side, but we don't drink). After several minutes of wondering if anyone even knew we were there, the waitress comes in and takes our drink order. She's friendly enough, and we ask her if we should move to the bar side since noone is on the restaurant side but us. She assures us that we are fine where we are and proceeds to get our drinks. When she returned with the drinks we placed our order. Fast forward an hour, yes literally an hour, and we still had not received our food, nor had we seen our waitress even once in this time. When we do finally see her my wife asks what is taking so long, especially considering we are the only people in the restaurant! She informs us that they are cooking orders for the bar area as well, and that there were seven more orders ahead of ours. She explains that the cooks on shift don't know how to properly manage cooking multiple orders at once. She then tell us that our food will be out in 3-5 minutes. We waited the 5 minutes and still no food. We had had enough at this point and decided to go elsewhere. I got the waitresses attention and explained to her that we were leaving and I'd like to pay for our drinks before doing so. She went into the kitchen and I could hear some commotion and someone yelling "well I'M not paying for it!!" She then returned with our ticket and after paying the two bucks for my coke, I tipped her 3. After all, she was friendly enough and it wasn't her fault I guess. All in all this was obliviously not a good experience. I would not recommend this place to anyone. It's very unfortunate too, as I had great expectations of the place! I heard their seafood was really good, and it may be, however I will never know! Maybe I would feel a little better if management had at least attempted to rectify the situation, but we never saw another soul the entire time we were there other than the waitress. Your luck may be better than ours, but unless you have at LEAST a couple of hours to kill, steer clear of the...

Stopped in after the casino. We were hungry and wanted to support a local business. The decor, design, seating—none of that really mattered to us as we aren’t fancy people. The first bad sign was the worn-out chairs. We walked around looking for a dining area outside of the bar area, but that was pretty much it. We were told by other diners to sit wherever we wanted. The one waitress working kept making the announcement (loudly) that she was the only one serving. When she came to the table, she again announced that loudly, and took our drink order. The next bad omen was the menus. They were literally moldy/mildewed paper inside a plastic protector. The food came at the 30 minute mark, but was literally dropped onto the table in front of us, with only a fork on top. Condiments were on the table: cocktail sauce, ketchup and tartar sauces in ketchup bottles with the tubes cut down to allow the ingredients to be dispensed. The tartar sauce should’ve been refrigerated, but I can’t imagine how long it would’ve taken to get that TO the table if we had had to ask. The food tasted ok, but again, it was LUKEWARM. Not lukewarm in the sense of “been waiting under a heat lamp,” but lukewarm in the sense of, “did this get cooked long enough?” Seafood should be piping hot if fried. This gave us the feeling that food poisoning was a possibility. Since our server felt so challenged with serving three tables, (not a packed house) we chose to exit without eating much and were probably better for it. I can’t recommend this place in good conscience. Maybe for locals who know the area or want a cold beer—ok. But if you’re looking for a great little seafood experience, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for “ambiance” or a pleasant, clean, quiet place, this isn’t that either. It’s a dive bar with a dusty feel and a semi-angry server who makes that fact well known to all. HARD PASS, and again, we are NOT fancy folks with 5 star expectations...Two stars is all you should expect, and that’s generous on their slowest day. One wall unit air conditioner in the corner. PASS and try...

I usually do no take the time to make a review, however, I made exception for this restaurant. I called earlier in the day around 4, and asked if they take reservations, the girl told me yes. So, I made reservations for my family of 5 and she even asked for a name and number. We showed up at 7 (our reservation time) and the restaurant section was closed so we went into the bar section. When we walked in, no one greeted us or anything, as I walked up to the bar section, the bartender stopped me and said, “‘mam this is our dining area, you seat yourself and it’s first come, first serve”….um ok 🥴 I didn’t even mention the “reservations” haha.

The Service: we sat and waited for drinks….just drinks for over 10 minutes. A family that came in behind us was served, drinks and their appetizers. The server was nice but she seemed very confused. Ther restaurant was not packed out, so I’m not sure where the confusion was keeping up with each table. There seemed to be 2 servers. However, I did notice they were all very helpful to the ones at the bar and made sure those customers were satisfied.

The food: the food was actually pretty tasty. I can’t really complain about the quality of food. Server forgot my salad and forgot my husband’s side. They brought the appetizers and meals all together 🙄 so that was a bummer. Also I asked for the salad to ge removed off my bill and the server told me she didn’t charge me for my daughters refill on coke so it was even now and she had talked with her manager, girl bye ✌🏻

So, unless they improve A LOT, I would not recommend this restaurant unless they make some...