SmacNally’s Waterfront Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Ocracoke

Every year that we come down to the Outer Banks, we always hit up Ocracoke Island as one of our favorite destinations. Of all the places we’ve eaten, we’ve always been extremely excited and pleased to stop by SMacNallys each time as a “last hurrah” of our trip. Sadly, this time proved to be the last ever for us, due to extremely horrible customer service and no food at all.

We arrived, and as expected, there was a wait. We put our name and number down, and waited for about 20 minutes for a table to clear. Once seated, a male server came up and took our drink order and gave us menus. The drinks arrived, and he came back to get our order about 10 minutes later. We started with an appetizer of calamari, and placed in our very basic orders (no substitutions, we ordered just as the menu presented). About 15 minutes later, we received our calamari...still, so far, pretty standard fare. As we were eating, a lady (who I presume was the manager on duty), dropped off a check to us for payment. I noted we hadn’t eaten yet, and she apologized and said she must have the wrong table......this is where the beginning of the end began.

From here, we waited....and waited....and waited. We never had any table side interaction from our waiter again, and instead, another female waitress came by and noted that our food was coming, but due to a pending storm, asked if we interested in taking it to go, or trying to eat it there. We noted we’d be happy to take it in a to-go box, but would prefer, if at all possible, to eat it there (as our party consisted of two young children).

While we waited, I brought up NOAA to see where the storm was coming in from. Hmmm.. no storm, just “light rain” until 11pm. Okay, we should be good to eat.

And then.... we waited and waited some more. As the female waitress came by again, I asked if we could move to the bar table under the roof covering, as they were taking down tables and umbrellas, and she said it would be fine. We took our drinks and moved over....and proceeded to wait more and more.

We watched as our original waiter kept going back to grab drinks for himself and make numerous phone calls. Again, he never interacted or even maintained connection with us since our order. The bar demanded to the kitchen there was no more food orders, and tables of 8, 10, and even several other tables who came in after us, received their food.

Literally, down to ourselves and another singular table (who also came after us and had food), and only the people at the bar left, and amazingly our waiter shows his face once more to say that he was sorry about the wait, but due to a printer issue in the kitchen, our food was never made...over an hour later.

At this point, our party demanded this was unacceptable and we were leaving. He raised his voice to my family and I, demanded it wasn’t his fault, and that’s when I lost it. I demanded he never even interacted with us, and the waitress took care of everything on his order - that he spent time shaking hands and hugging patrons at a large party table - and that he was more interested in being on his phone instead of taking care of his customers. He screamed that he was on the phone to talk with the owner, his mom, about the supposed thunderstorm rolling in, and then screamed at me that he was on the phone to “prevent deaths from lightening”....seriously?

The female manager came out and asked the waiter to step aside, and also noted a mixup with the printer, and that they would get the food right out and comped. While I was first willing to accept this, my wife noted that the issue wasn’t a printer issue, but instead, when the manager came out with our “check”, she closed the ticket to our order, thus our food was never made. Instead of simply apologizing and clearing the resolve, the manager said “if you’re that unhappy, don’t ever come back.”

Wow.. simply, wow. I couldn’t even fathom her attitude, or that of the supposed son...

We stopped at this restaurant mostly because all other restaurants were extremely busy. We saw they had decent food options, and a decent area/view. However, once we got up onto the deck/seating area, we noticed the tables and chairs were super close. It’s definitely not a place that is taking the Covid situation seriously, so If that’s a deal breaker for you, this is not the place to eat. The public bathroom they allow people to use was absolutely gross.. the floor was covered in what I’m assuming was urine, and the “soap” was just a big bottle of dawn dish soap.. Anyway, we arrived around 7pm. We ordered drinks and calamari as a starter, the drinks took about 15 minutes to arrive so that was already alarming. The calamari was pretty good for the most part, it came with slices and tentacles, it was a bit dry, but I’ve definitely had worse. We both ordered a platter that was supposed to contain oysters, shrimp, fries, coleslaw, and hush puppies. We ordered our dinner around 7:20pm, we waited what was almost an hour, no food. Our waitress didn’t even bother checking on us during this time, or even question why we didn’t have food yet. After about 10 more minutes she came over and said “I’m sorry, what did you guys order for dinner again? I just don’t seem to have anything in here for you.” We reminded her of our order, she came back and told us they were out of oysters and for some reason our order never made it to the kitchen. At this point me and my boyfriend and being eaten alive by mosquitos, she finally brings us our food and tells us they will pay for our meal completely due to the mix up. The food was decent enough to make up for the wait, but we were so sick of being bitten by mosquitoes that we just boxed our food up and left. We also never got our...

What a HORRIBLE experience. What happened to my son and me should never, ever happen in a properly and professionally managed business. After waiting 30 mins in the heat I checked with the hostess on our place in line. While doing that, a couple walked in, asked what the wait time was and was told, "you can take that table now" because it was in a first come first served area. NO ONE TOLD US they had tables you could just walk up to!!! Why would you put someone on a list and make them wait almost an hour (it would be 45 mins total) and not also say, "or, just take an open table over there?" Even worse, why would you take a party right off the street over another party, that had already been waiting 30 mins, was standing right in front of you?!!?

But it got even worse. At 45 mins we were told our table was ready. Just then a man walked up to the hostess, while I was working with her, and asked for a table for 8. The hostess and 1 or 2 other servers immediately and completely dismissed me and began pushing together a set of tables for 2 to make an 8 top for that group -- WHILE I WAS STANDING RIGHT THERE. When they eventually returned and found me there I asked how that was possible, she provided a most disgusting and idiotic explanation of "well a bunch of tables just opened up." She literally expected me to be believe that FIVE parties had just simultaneously left. That was absolutely a lie because we had been standing in front of the restaurant the entire time, paying attention, and that simply did not happen.

Needless to say I would never even think of returning...