Paul's of Oak Island — Restaurant in Oak Island

The environment: It is an outdoor bar with the garage door open. Expect it to be near the ambient temperature outside. There will be flies but the staff is quick to pick up used plates and there are spinning towers that also control the flies. They have 3 mobile units to cool/dehumidify the area. At 88 outside it was about 78 inside and while warm it was comfortable. The inside is nice and welcoming.

The food: We had the garlic cheese curds, fried ribs with cheerwine bbq, and fried chicken sandwich (no sauce). The garlic cheese curds are amazing and were fried too perfection. The garlic came through clearly without being overpowering. The fried ribs with cheerwine sauce were decedent. The ribs were slow cooked and then finish fried to give it a nice crust which added a lovely texture and changes the flavor subtly for the better. The fried chicken sandwich was very tender from the buttermilk marinade and was cooked to perfection. My side was dirty rice. It was very flavorful and had a spicy kick.

The drinks: The drinks are on point and from the menu is clear they don't like using mixers. edit The beer menu is a well curated list of draft and can micro brew. There is more than 1 beer for whatever your taste likes. The bartender is knowledgeable about the beers and is also skilled at mixing drinks. While having SLIGHTLY less options than a beer garden it doesn't disappoint in the slightest.

We are in town for 1 week and want to come back again to explore more of the menu. Reportable there is an indoor restaurant side coming in the near future.

Edit* They have since set up multiple fans that somehow keeps the flies away. Didn't see flies this time I went.

Edit Expanded drink review. Been here 7 times since initial review. Sorry for not taking pictures. Get...

Go else where if you have a bigger party, even though they have seating to accommodate parties of eight. This place employees rude people with the growing trend of not wanting to work to make there money. Usually more people means more money in the waitress industry. I would try everything possible to make it happen in there shoes.Not sure why the waitress was giving my daughter dirty looks when trying to work with there ridiculous lies about seating rules. Very unsatisfied with the hospitality of this place. Zero stars if possible. Couldn't even get a chance to look at the menu before getting horrible service.... pretty bad! I am not a manger of a restaurant you have the wrong guy. The owner review on this post is just more lies to try to make him look better. I pointed out there was a round table in the corner big enough for our party and that we tried moving everybody to the one side of the table after we were told that no one can sit on the other side. We tried to follow there rules of leaving the isle open but then was told it was to many people at one table. If it wasn't wasn't a lie then y'all would have started with that. We were told one thing then we followed that rule and your waitresses didn't like that so they told us another bull rule....I seen other people with same size parties at the same table so the amount doesn't matter..... Sounds like a lie to me. I never leave reviews so for me to leave a review something real bad happen. We were polite the whole time even though your waitresses have horrible attitudes. And I wouldn't have said nothing on the way out but your waitress said another smart thing on the way out so I just pointed out that there was other tables with no one at it that would accommodate us...

Thank you, sweet Baby Jesus!!! I just moved here and I’ve been searching for a sports bar that I can call home.

I’ve literally been to about a dozen sports bars in the area now and it’s all the same fried frozen overpriced food.

My family and I decided to pop in here over Labor Day weekend. Our goal was to watch some of the Ohio State game and have some good food! This place hit on everything I needed!

I love the menu with the custom drinks from the bartenders, Kids menus are awesome as well and the kids get something to draw with. I love that it’s a sports bar, but it’s still family friendly enough. Great beer selection and I love that has the giant garage door so you get the breeze from the outside!

I got the wings, which are my favorite ones since I moved here. They are fresh not frozen, I got them with the traditional hot sauce, which was meeting expectation. I’m excited to go back and try their other sauces. I also got a BLT, which was huge! Kids got the mac & cheese and the chicken nugget. My daughter didn’t care for the mac & cheese because she’s used to craft this place actually makes real mac & cheese with actual seasoning so we decided to keep the mac & cheese and me and my wife split it lol. My wife got the burger, but she was really happy about it was served on toasted sourdough bread so she liked that it was crispy as well!

Overall, I would rate this place, a five out of five. The service wasn’t spectacular, but this was the first day for college football and a holiday weekend so I’m definitely willing to come back...