Southern Salt Seafood Company and Waterfront Restaurant — Restaurant in North Carolina

Don’t go here.

After spending the day outdoors exploring my children and I were hungry so we looked up some restaurants and found this spot. Reviews looked good so we thought we’d try it.

They have a dedicated parking lot across the street and when I pulled in I saw 2 men standing in front of a truck talking. One walked off as the children and I exited the car and began walking towards the restaurant. The remaining man called after me so I turned back to him whereupon he tells me that this is the parking lot for the restaurant and I couldn’t park here. That he has only 75 spaces and 350 chairs inside and it was the holiday weekend (Labor Day) and that he needed all of the spaces. I was shocked. I pointed to the restaurant and said “you mean this restaurant right here, that I was walking towards the crosswalk to get to?” Yeah, the parking lot is clearly marked. I wasn’t trying to get a jay walking ticket so I was headed to the crosswalk. This should have been the sign to not go here, but we were hungry and tired.

Inside the sign said to seat yourself, so we did and waited for 9 minutes to be acknowledged. The bar area was busy, but most of the tables were open, I guess they were waiting for the parking lot to fill in! I did not see any waiters around. We were going to get ready to leave when a young man approached. He asked how we were doing, and I replied that we were hungry. He apologized for the wait.

We looked over the menu and I asked him which appetizer was better, the crab dip or the stuffed shrimp. He said the crab dip smelled off so I should order the shrimp. This should have been my second sign to leave, but we were hungry and tired. At this point I totally know that it’s my fault for staying!

The food was mediocre. The restaurant was dirty. The floor under the chairs and tables and especially under the chairs around the bar looked like it had not been swept for sometime. And we were there at about 4 in the afternoon.

He did come back one time to ask how we were enjoying our food and I said everything was OK. And then I didn’t see him again for about 15 more minutes where I had to track him down to get the check. When he brought the check the pen he gave me didn’t work. I got up and grabbed another pen off the bar. And that one didn’t work either. So I got up again and grabbed another pen off the bar and luckily that one worked. We paid and left.

No one thanked us for our business. I guess when you have a restaurant in a beach town, it doesn’t matter if you have good customer service because people are coming and going all the time. Maybe if you are a local you get better...

If I could give 0 stars, I would. First, in order to eat out as a family: myself, my husband and our 8 children under age 16, we are automatically assigned a 20% charge on our bill even though we sat at 2 separate tables and ordered on separate tickets! This means we can have the worst service ever, no drinks refilled, etc...and still be charged 20%. Absolutely zero incentive for the server to earn more or actually be good at their job. Now, I understand if we were several parties together, splitting bills, etc...but we are just one family. Then, a 3% charge even more for paying with a credit card? Crazy! Now, the food: hushpuppies? Fantastic! We have a child that would live on hushpuppies and that was the highlight and the main reason we came. It goes down hill from there. The food quality gives the "always frozen never fresh" vibe and for that, I could stay home in Central NC. The location demands fresh! Because I am personally required to eat gluten free, I ordered the t-bone, baked potato and green beans, and it was the absolute worst meal I have ever had. I only took 1 bite of the steak, 2 bites of the hard potato and one bite of the green beans. Horrible. The steak was either cooked from frozen or thawed in the microwave and cooked. I ordered it medium but it was just gray and tons of ick! My husband tried it and was appalled. We told our server, he took the entire plate away and we were then informed we'd only get $20 off on it. So I essentially paid $14 to try a bite. Ridiculous! The portions are tiny. My husband and I visited in April and his plate was full. This time, bare minimum. Overall, we just feel like we were robbed! If I could go back, we would have stayed home. We work hard, save for vacation, and to leave hungry and having spent over $300 for what our kids call "a huge disappointment" is just that! Sadly, this place could potentially be amazing but based on our experience and the other reviews, it's struggling. I am appalled that a business can get away with this and more, appalled, as a business owner myself, that this owner can even sleep at night knowing this is the kind of business they're running. I'd hate to see business shut down but if you can't figure it out,...

DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE WE DID. Eat anywhere else!!!!!! We got there at 6:00 and was seated immediately. It took 10 minutes for anyone to come to our table and they were not busy. I tried to get our waitress to take the entire order but she just wanted our drink order. It took 10 minutes to get our drinks. She then took our order, and said she had some HOT delicious hush puppies coming and we had better be careful when eating, they NEVER came. The restaurant filled up and everyone around us was getting there food, we stopped another server to ask where our food was. The manager came over and apparently our order was lost. He said it would be out immediately. About 10 minutes later it came out, after we got the meal we had NOTHING to drink. Our horrible waitress shows up and ask if we needed anything we said something to drink. SHE NEVER CAME BACK AND DISAPPEARED. WE ATE OUT ENTIRE MEAL WITHOUT ANYTHING TO DRINK. I DID NOTICE THAT SHE WAS OUTSIDE ON THE DOCK HUGGING PEOPLE AND TALKING TO THEM FOR OVER 20 MINUTES. I ordered a combination plate of 2, I had 8 shrimp and one of the smallest pieces of flounder I have ever seen. The seafood was fair, the cole slaw was just nasty. My son got a shrimp plate and got 12 shrimp, my cousin got the captains plate and it was also small.{small piece of fish, 3 scallops, 3 oysters and 8 shrimp} The plate with the most food was my sons kids plate with frozen chicken tenders and fries. Since we had not seen our waitress we called the phone number at the restaurant and go NO answer. At 7:45 we had never seen our waitress again, we got up to see if we could get out bill and a very nice lady tried to find it but could not. We continued to wait and NO waitress at 8:00 I got up and gave a $120.00 to the bar tender for our food and said we refused to wait any longer. The bartender was very nice and apologized. I got ready to leave and we finally saw our waitress and I told here she needed a NEW job.. The place needs a new manager he did not check on our table never apologized for the horrible service. If you look at all of these reviews he does not care or he would respond to some of them. This place...