Coastal Haze Restaurant — Restaurant in North Carolina

EDIT: Reducing 5 star rating to 3. Entire family returned and thought the food was just okay, the ordering process unintuitive/unrelaxing and the prices way too high (you pay before eating, where they suggest a 20% tip, but the waitstaff only ever actually bring you your food and never interact with you outside of that). We live close by but have collectively decided we are unlikely to return. Atmosphere is still awesome though.

The outdoor seating area is incredibly cozy. The inside also looks much better than I anticipated and I loved every song that played. The time and money they spent on remodeling was well invested.

You order at a counter, seat yourself, and can go to the bar to order a drink. They will call out your name once the food is ready and you flag them over to your table.

The food was not that great, but I think that's because I ordered a banh mi expecting a banh mi. Their version has significantly more meat/less veggies than a traditional one (which for many is a plus, just not me). I think they also must pickle their vegetables in a different way than is traditional and their haze sauce doesn't resemble banh mi mayo enough. Don't get me wrong, it's still a decent sandwich, it just doesn't resemble the taste of a banh mi at all. The fries were excellent.

Their wait staff seemed to consist almost entirely of teenage girls, and as someone who was once a teenage girl, I always find it a bit sus when a business has a very obvious pattern of hiring certain vulnerable people. Often it is to exploit something about them, such as their naivety (first/second job) or looks. I hope they are being treated very well AND paid well. So many business owners are still mentally stuck in the economy of 2012 and think their employees getting $15 an hour means they are treating them like royalty and the employees should be kissing their feet for offering so much money for "just a low skilled job." Meanwhile the world has completely changed and $15 barely gets you by even in a rural area like this. EDIT: To the other reviewer who said the employees are "family and family friends" and I'm off base for making an observation -- first, weird that all their family and family friends that need jobs happen to be teen girls. Second, this makes it even more likely that they will not feel comfortable speaking up about mistreatment or lack of pay. How do you think that conversation is going to go? "Dad I feel like they're not paying me enough at the restaurant, I would be homeless if I had to pay rent. Plus they're always so mean to me!" "Shut up and be grateful Sarah. Your uncle didn't even have to give you a job. Don't start drama in our family just because Jerry yelled at you once!"

I'm giving 5 stars with the intention of returning and possibly lowering my rating. The atmosphere blew me out of the water, but I'm not convinced...

Super disappointed. We had been looking forward to this restaurant all week on our vacation. Read other reviews that it was very similar to Fish Hut Grill (maybe even the same chef?) and every time we drove past Fish Hut Grill it was lined out the door.

When we got there, the parking lot was half full and there were a few tables open outside. However, when I went in to order, they told me it would be 45 minutes for food because they had a big party that just got their food. Not sure how one party sets a kitchen back almost an hour. And they weren’t lying, it took right about 45 minutes for our food to come out. When I went in to refresh my drink, I heard them tell a party that it would be over an hour for an order. That party left. I would have liked to order another kids meal, but with an hour wait, it was impossible.

Overall, the food was okay. We ordered a smattering for the five of us (two adults and three kids) including the special pierogis, coconut shrimp, peel and eat shrimp, dry rub wings, onion rings, pretzel bites, house salad, and a kids chicken tenders and fries. Probably the best part of the meal was the peel and eat shrimp and the onion rings. The special pierogis were maple bacon, but they were so sweet, they were basically dessert. The dry rub wings were seasoned after they were cooked and they were over seasoned. The order came ten wings to an order and I wanted to split flavors, but they wouldn’t do it. The salad was over dressed. The coconut shrimp were decent, but mostly breading. The fries on the kids plate were undercooked and the pretzel bites were overcooked.

Based on the reviews and what I read before we went, I really wanted to like it, but overall I was...

My husband and I ate here for the first time recently. The restaurant has a welcoming atmosphere, excellent parking, and fun modern decor with a lot of plants and lighting. We chose to eat outside, and it was fairly quiet so we could hear each other talk.

The restaurant has an interesting approach to ordering food. After you walk in, you need to grab yourself a menu, decide what to get, and order it at a ordering counter. Once you do that, the worker asks for a first name and last name initial to call out your order once it's ready. You get your own fountain drinks or canned beer, unless you want a specialty drink at the bar.

After you've ordered food and drinks, you can sit wherever you want. The food came out within 10 minutes so super fast. We ordered the Drip burger with fries and the chicken bulgolgi lettuce wraps. My husband said the fries were crispy well but needed more seasonings like salt. The bulgolgi was not what I was expecting. It's an odd fusion of Korean and Greek food. The lunch style metal tray was filled to the brim with food, so you get your money's worth. My dish had a Greek salad, a big stack of butter leaves, probably a half of a pound of overly salted chicken, cucumbers, tomatoes, and very salty soy sauce. I don't like food waste, but we couldn't finish the chicken. It was way too salty. The tea was delicious, though.

Once we were done, a nice young man picked up our trays off of our table. We paid inside at a checkout area next to the front entrance. We may go back, but my advice is to streamline the order process and pick a food...