Tortugas Lie — Restaurant in Nags Head

Iconic OBX restaurant! Well worth the visit!

Sooooo... the wife unit has been coming to the Outer Banks since she was a toddler, and she has been to this iconic restaurant many times since it opened, but this was my first time and I was super impressed by the following "extra" mile efforts in addition to the great food.

As this joint is apparently always packed, both by locals and tourists, be prepared to wait. When we got there about 5:30 pm on a Tuesday during high season, we were told that our wait was gonna be about an hour and ten minutes.

It was worth it! But let me expand on the wait time.

At the back of the joint, there are two full beach volleyball courts and a corn hole set up. Also, a beach bar and several tables are under cover and outside. We ordered drinks, and our son joined the volleyball match, and I'd be darned if he didn't immediately start to dominate the game.

We had 8:30pm tickets to the Lost Colony theater play in Roanoke island, about half an hour drive, and around 6:45pm we started to get a little nervous and went up to the front to see where we were in the wait process.

I also passed to the shaved head dude with the giant mustache that sorta looked like a 1950s Hollywood rubbing bottle genie, that we had the 8:30 tickets, and we're getting a little concerned.

With a giant smile, he walked over to the back area, cleaned and assembled two tables from the bar area, and sat us down. He then came back with menus and took our orders... we had 6 people in the group, and my wife asked him: "Aren't you working the front greeting job?"

With a giant smile, he nodded yes and said that he could do both, as our emergency seating area didn't have a waiter assigned.

Talk about a motivated dude!

The food was worth the wait! We had hummus as one of the entrees (giant serving), delicious broth clam soup, and chips and salsa (free refills).

Our main courses were three orders of fish tacos, burger, quinoa salad (spectacular), and a dozen steamed clams.

I can not say enough good things about the joint and the genie in a bottle waiter/front greeter dude! Thank you for going the extra mile sir!

And the food, great American fair, was also really good!

If you're out in the OBX, do not miss this local and...

I have to say first that I only write a review to tout an exceptional experience and it pains me to write this less than stellar review. My family, friends and I have been going to Tortuga’s every annual Outer Banks visit for a solid 30 years. It is one of the places on our must dine list and one of the ones we are most excited about every year. They were a great find all those years ago. We knew it was a “locals” hang out and we respected the slight edge in attitude and the rules that went along with it. But this year was different. We ordered a lb of crab legs for the table as an appetizer and we knew they wanted to turn the table so ordered our meals as well, with the expectation we would have enough time to get close to finishing the legs. The meals were out w/i 5 minutes and there was no room on the table for them. When we told the runner we weren’t ready for them quite yet within a minute our server, Megan, returned with the meals with no acknowledgment that we sent them back and announced each order looking for direction on where to place it. There was no apology and in fact it was the opposite and quite confrontational. She indicated that meals could not go back and she put the legs in prior to the meal order intentionally. But 5 minutes is not nearly enough time for 5 people to crack and eat a lb of crab legs. We were each on our first or second leg, but there was no concession. The meals were wedged in and we had to crack the rest of the legs over our meals. We then felt like the worst customers ever when we could hear Megan and her co-workers talking about us at the bar. No one came to ask us if everything was okay or to apologize, but we believed it necessary to let the manager know that we felt like we were not welcome and that after 30 years, we likely won’t be back. We are truly so sad and will miss the yummy food and the cool esthetic and local vibe we have enjoyed all...

On August 31 our group of 6 decided to stop by and get lunch after 3-4 hrs driving. And we picked this place. We talked to the host and waited 30 mins for our table to be ready which was not a problem for us. When we get called and she sees we had a service dog she looked at me and said “ oh you have a dog” I said: “yes, is a support dog” and proceeded to show her our legal docs which she didn’t look anyway and with a nasty attitude said “just go in”. Her attitude was upsetting but didn’t want to ruin our lunch. So we sat at our designated table but came to find out they had outside seating. It was hot but decided to kindly ask the server if we could be switched to an outside table since the dog seemed to be an issue with the host (outside had plenty of tables and chairs). The server said wouldn’t be a problem just ask the host. Went to the host and asked her if we could be switched since we had the dog and didn’t want to make anybody uncomfortable and she said “YES, BECAUSE WE ACTUALLY DO NOT ACCEPT SERVICE ANIMALS”. I decided not to say a word to her after thou she had a nasty attitude and refusing to accept someone with a service dog could get the business in big trouble with the law. BUT after we get seated not even 10 mins later…. We realize there were others with service dogs and pets. So she had no issue with anybody else but us and OUR small service dog. We figured it was a race thing because we were the only customers who were not Americans and is sad to say but been treated the way she treated us, looked at us and even dared to say they didn’t accept service animals could’ve been plenty for us to leave and even file for a lawsuit but needless to say we are not going back and we’re definitely not recommending such a place. The food was good but the service was horrible. It was so upsetting and frustrating but didn’t want to make a scene thou we had the right...