Madison's Prime Rib Steak & Seafood — Restaurant in North Topsail Beach

I went to this restaurant as a matter of curiosity since it is listed as the top place to get prime rib in the area even though the reviews discuss mostly the country buffet. The surf and turf, which has the prime rib, is NOT all-you-can-eat beef any longer. Nowadays you get to choose between 12 ounces of prime rib, ribeye, or New York strip. You also get two seafood options-clam strips, scallops, shrimp, or deviled crab along with two sides and a choice between rolls or hushpuppies. This is $24.99. You can opt to add the buffet bar for $5 more.

Since I went to the restaurant more for the entertainment value of trying a new place rather than having any expectation of a great meal, I went with the surf and turf plus buffet option for $30.

First off at 11:40 on a Sunday, I was informed that they ran out of prime rib on Saturday, and they needed to purchase more beef sometime in the future to have prime rib again. So I could have ribeye or New York strip.

Yup, Madison's Prime Rib Steak & Seafood had NO prime rib and would not for an unknown period of time.

So swallowing down my disappointment, I went with the 12 ounce ribeye medium rare, clam strips, scallops, a double order of fried okra, and hush puppies.

When I proceeded to the buffet bar, things were pretty picked through. Most of the food on the bar obviously came out of giant food service cans and got dressed up a little before being served. The fried chicken bin was empty. I had read that the fried chicken was the best item on the buffet bar so I decided to wait on my first round.

When the fried chicken did make a reappearance about ten minutes later, I got a breast and a thigh to try, and indeed the breading was crisp and well-seasoned. The breast was dry from being over-fried, but the thigh was moist and juicy. Overall the fried chicken was better than KFC on most days.

My ribeye steak, clam strips, and scallops came out not long after I finished my fried chicken. The waitress informed me that the kitchen staff had forgotten to fry any okra for the buffet bar today and asked me to choose a side other than okra. I was silent for a few moments-taken aback that I would be denied okra as my ordered side because it wasn't already on the buffet bar. At my lengthy silence, the waitress amended that she would have the kitchen staff fry some okra fresh for me but it would be a few minutes. I let her know that I was fine waiting for the okra-which was the only side I wanted out of all the options listed.

My ribeye steak was half an inch thick and cooked to medium well rather than medium rare. At least it seemed to be decent quality beef and probably would have been tasty if it had been cut to an inch and a half thickness and cooked to medium rare. As it was, it was rather leathery from being overcooked with an unremarkable flavor. The clam strips were over-fried to the point of being inedible even with generous amounts of tartar sauce completely coating them so I abandoned over half of them as being too tough and hard to eat. The fried scallops were nice sized but absolutely soggy with no crunch at all.

In the meanwhile a nice well-meaning waitress had asked if I wanted my unsweet tea refilled, and even though I explicitly told her that I had unsweet tea, my glass was transformed into semi-sweet tea with the refill. I simply sighed and made do with the new state of my tea.

I never did receive the hush puppies that were suppose to come as part of my surf and turf. I was already in grease overload from the fried chicken, fried seafood, and fried okra so I didn't bother pointing out to the wait staff that they forgot about my hush puppies.

The well-meaning waitress tried a second time to refill my glass with sweet iced tea even though I told her again that I had UNSWEET tea. I had to repeat UNSWEET tea twice before she got the correct tea pitcher to top off my unwanted semi-sweet tea glass of tea. She never offered to get me a fresh glass of unsweet iced tea even though she apologized for getting my tea...

Today I gave this restaurant a second chance. The first time I ate here was in April, and I was not pleased. The servers were less than enthusiastic, I felt as though my family and I were a bother to them. We were left sitting at our table with no menus to look at or server to take our drink orders. I'm guessing it was just assumed that we all wanted to do the buffet but it was our first time and we didn't know what our options were. It was a little annoying but once we were able to order and received our food everything went smoothly from then on. Today was a different story. We had a group of 14 so a few of us went early to let the servers know how many we had and to see when we could get in. When told how many we had in our group the server was very rude and told us that because we did not make a reservation we would have to wait. There was next to no one in the restaurant, not to mention they had only been open for just a little while at this point. So it did not make sense to us why there was such a wait if no one was there. If it had been busy, we would've understood the wait, but this was not the case. When they took us back, they put in the back "party" room which was great, but also made me wonder why it was such a big inconvenience for them in the beginning. The woman who seated us wasn't friendly, took our drink orders abruptly, rattled off some specials and let us on our way with the buffet. She never came back to us after that. But a nicer woman did come check on us and get our refills, she was sweet and refreshing, I wish I had caught her name. The food was good, buffet selection was good, but I cant get past the service, it was unacceptable so I will...

Well, me and my husband have been looking for an all You can eat crab leg buffet for a good while and we come across this place and Sneads Ferry which is over I would probably say a good hour away from our home. When we came in and sat down, the first thing we did was go to the restroom which I must add. You need a face mask to use the women's bathroom. I'm not a hundred percent sure on the mens. After finally sitting down, we had a slim older woman Serve us ...seemed friendly at first. but as we waited for our food and sat and listened to her and her husband.. I'm assuming ...bickering back-and-forth me and him were the only ones in the restaurant so we heard everything ...even the fish was looking at them. Us being only one there ...should have took this as a sign. They brought us our food and with the buffet. Being 59.99 all you can eat crab 🦀 legs. As we went to leave to pay our bill. It was over a $131 as she made it a point to mention. She didn't add the gratuity in there. There wasn't A whole lot that she did. My husband tipped her nine dollars and she looked at him and said the The gratuity is 15%. there's no law anywhere that states you have to tip anybody anything, and under the conditions had somebody worked their tail off. Yes, I could see leaving a good tip. But not acting like it's part of the bill and expecting it. I have no doubt in my mind that that woman's making a killing. For basically doing nothing. So he laughed gave her a 20. Last visit there,!!!@!! Wont be back...the food wasnt nothing to get...