King Mackerels and Beach Tavern Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Morehead City

I don’t write reviews but I want people to not be fooled by the other reviews of this place like we were. I am legitimately shocked it has good reviews. I picked this place after a long drive down to the coast based solely on the fact it was open past 8pm, and had decent reviews.

I’ll start with the good: the facility is cleanish and kid friendly. This may even be too generous as the place has a faint cigarette smoke smell that originally thought came from another customer but as the meal dragged on, I realized was the facility itself. Maybe they let the staff smoke after hours while they are closing or something but it was gross and my throat and nose are currently irritated from it 2.5 hours later.

We had a party of 8 with 4 adults and 4 kids. This place charges an outlandish 25% automatic gratuity for parties of 6 or more. That would be fine if the service was good, but man was that bad. We were the only table of customers for at least 20 minutes and the drinks continuously ran dry. It took forever for the waitress to finally come back and take our order. When 3 other 2 tops were seated, the service got worse. I had to repeatedly take empties to the counter to get refills on our sodas and waters. It appeared as though they only had 1 wait staff and 1 cook working while 3 off duty employees sat at the bar drinking and taking up the 1 waitresses’ attention.

Now let’s get to the food. This place has about as limited a food menu as you will find in any restaurant. On top of that, there were 2 items on the menu crossed out as they aren’t offered any more and then they were out of 3 of the things we tried to order.

My son got a club sandwich that had dehydrated turkey and old, cold bacon on it and the whitest, flattest bread ever made that it could be mistaken for a tortilla. He ate 1 bite and didn’t want it any more. This is a large growing teenager and he didn’t want to eat

My other son got the boneless wings and while the BBQ wings were finished, the garlic parmesan ones were flavorless.

Unfortunately 3 of our adults chose the blackened shrimp platter. Let me tell you that this was the smallest portion size I have seen for the price in my life. For example the side of “hush puppies” can only be called that because there were literally 2 in the order and each of those was about half the size of a golf ball. That probably turned out for the best because it was hands down the worst shrimp any of the 3 of us have ever had. This shrimp is obviously frozen grocery store shrimp that I can only imagine was microwaved and sprinkled with some kind of blackened season or maybe they come prepackaged as blackened but it is certainly not fresh shrimp or prepared on site. It was truly awful. Especially disappointing given the location of this restaurant literally on the boardwalk of one of the most famous fishing spots in the world that has incredibly well known seafood options all around.

As I write this and reflect on our experience, I’m actually mad that I didn’t ask to speak to a manager and wish I would have refused to pay.

Out of 4 adults, 1 teenager, and 3 kids, 1 adult/teenager finished their meal and was satisfied and 2 of the kids finished their food and were satisfied. This is a miserably failing grade for a restaurant.

If you want a spot to grab a beer, then sure, this place works. If you want a place to eat, run as fast as you can in a different direction as literally any other option within 5 miles is better. I would have been more satisfied with a McDonald’s fish sandwich.

Bottom line: -Bad/slow service -Atrociously bad food -Comically small portions -Insanely expensive given portion size and quality -Parties of 6+ forced to pay and extremely high tip given the quality of service and food

The good news for me is that I won’t be asked to choose where we eat for the rest of our trip based on this experience. I’ll be shocked if this place is still open next time we come down unless they just sell enough on the bar side to stay...

My wife and I went there on a date night without the kids. The atmosphere about the place was different. As we walked I to go to the hostess stand a gentlemen approached us and asked how many and where we wanted to sit, inside or out. We said outside and he said okay and proceeded with seating ourself. Watching interactions with others, they sat everybody at a table that came in behind us. The waitress we had was unlike one we've encountered as she was asking my wife what she wanted to drink, my wife said a Mermaid Water, the waitresses face was questionable and asked if she was sure that's what she wanted. We ordered food and as I was stating I wanted a side salad, the waitress told me it didn't come with sides as it was in a big bowl, so I finished by stating I wanted a salad too. The dinner arrived and looked delicious, but as I took my first bite into the Teriyaki Skirt Steak, Pineapple, and White rice, I but into something hard. Upon review it seemed as though the rice hadn't been fully cooked. My wife tried a bite and same result, so I brought it up to the waitress. She went in the back and asked the chef, she brought me a new bowl which was 100 times better and stated that the rice was cooked but he "must have" scraped the pot while spooning mine to the plate, and those were burnt pieces. The food is too pricy for getting scraps from the bottom of the pan. We will most likely never...

One of my worst dining experiences. It was not a very busy evening yet the staff looked like they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. We were greeted by a nice server who took our drink order, and then brought the wrong drinks by a new server who said our original server was too busy - it felt like she stole the table. We then proceeded to receive terrible service, my husband's order came out well after mine resulting in a cold entree on my part from waiting, and the server never brought the condiments we requested. When we were ready to receive the bill, it took ages, and we could see the server doing random things that resulted in us waiting another 20 minutes just to get the bill. The food was okay, the restroom was dirty and if you walked through the restaurant you were likely to be tackled by any of the wait staff running around because they were all going to the wrong tables. We were very disapointed as we swlwcted tgis restaurant for a special occasion based on the wonderful reviews. I can only assume, the other reviews on here must be friends of the owner, as the gentleman who seemed to be the owner greeted us once to begin with and then busied himself the rest of the evening chatting at 2 tables who appeared to be his friends. Never once did he check on us again, or apologize...