Solar Brewing Company — Restaurant in Oak Island

Visited Solar yesterday and definitely will not be back. The sign inside the door says “seat yourself” but of the two tables available, neither had been cleared yet so we waited patiently. While standing up front waiting, one member of the waitstaff simply asked us to hang out while they got their tables taken care of and the one for us cleaned - totally fine! But then, what I can only assume should have been our waitress stepped to the front of the restaurant and said “we only have this table, are you sure you want to squeeze all in there?” (We were 5 people at a fairly good sized 4 top table, for the beach on the 4th of July weekend, we were fine with that. Delighted, even.) So we told her we definitely were. She responded “well there’s a half hour wait on food” and again, we said, no big deal! It’s a brewery, so we had no problem getting drinks and waiting on food.

That however, was not what this member of the waitstaff had planned for us. We arrived before 7:30 - stood upfront for a while, and were at our table by 7:30 when we noticed that the kitchen, per google, was going to close at 8:30. Plenty of time but we knew we wanted to get our orders in quickly as to not keep the kitchen staff for longer. We all decided what we wanted to eat and drink and we just waited. Another table of 4 came in, were seated, waited on, received their drink orders and….nothing, still no original waitress. No waters, no one even signaling they’d get to us soon. Around the 15-20 minute mark everyone around us was being waited on and we were not, another waitress said she would get someone, and left the vicinity. No one came. At this point it’s 8pm and as someone who comes here every year, we know on a Sunday everything is closed by 9pm. So if we plan to actually eat anywhere else, we’d need to be there now. So we left. Which is what I believe the waitress wanted us to do from the very moment she tried to discourage us from sitting. She disappeared and never returned to the front of house. Disappointing.

So instead we went down the street a bit and visited Sunset Grill! Can’t recommend them enough!! Wonderful staff, atmosphere, and food. Solar brewing...

My family and I visited this restaurant during our vacation to Oak Island - and wow!! Amazing service, food, and prices. We were informed ahead of time that there was only one chef working that evening, and we decided to stay. We are so glad we did, because the chef delivered! All of the food arrived relatively quickly, considering he was the only one making everything. Everything was hot and fresh. We ordered the fried pickles and pesto pinwheels as appetizers, and they were excellent!! I absolutely loved the pesto pinwheels and the marinara sauce that accompanied them. For entrees, my family enjoyed the wings, chicken tenders, and pizza. I personally ordered the chicken tenders with fries, and I really enjoyed the tenders because it was only a minimal breading (possibly a beer batter) and more meat. The barbecue sauce was delicious and even covered in sauce, the tenders were still crunchy and the meat itself was juicy! The fries were also crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

All of the FOH staff were also super nice and friendly! We are so glad we stopped for dinner. My dad enjoyed a beer as well. I don’t drink, so if you are considering stopping by - whether or not you drink beer, it’s worth stopping here anyway because the food and staff are all...

I am very patient with wait staff, as working in food service is no easy task. However, I have never encountered people who are so reluctant to do their job. Once we sat down at our table, it took several minutes to get some attention. After a while, a man came and took our drink order as well put in our appetizer. The food and drinks came out fairly promptly, so we felt as though the wait for service was a fluke. We finished our appetizer and our drinks. After about 30 minutes of waiting for service, we assumed that we had to go to the bar for service. “Maybe this is one of those places where your order before you sat down,” we thought. When we approached the bar to ask if we could order, the gentleman seemed upset that we had approached him and followed us back to our table to take our order. Again, the food came out promptly, and was actually, delicious. The pizza crust was wonderful. Again, we waited about 30 minutes without anyone waiting on us. We approached the bar, once again, to ask for a box and a bill. The gentleman at the bar ROLLED HIS EYES and followed us back to our table with a box and a handheld point of sale device. We were so astounded that someone in food service would treat us with such disrespect. We will not be...