BROKEN OAR MARINA-BAR & GRILL — Restaurant in Port Barrington

Horrible experience at this place. They do not care about ALL their customers, only the so called "regular" customers. Their was an extremely intoxicated customer playing on one of the gambling machines. The customer got up and left the machine. The man had been gone from the machine for an extended period of time. I sat down at the machine which DID NOT have any money credited on the machine. I inserted my money and started playing. After a minute or so this intoxicated customer approached me completely enraged and started yelling at me because I was at his machine and that he still had money in it. I informed the man that there was not any money in the machine when I sat down to play, I told the man that I would cash out the money that I had placed in the machine and I would let him play. The man was insistent and relentless and decided that he was going to try to get physical with my husband and proceeded to place his face up to my husbands. My husband ignored this severely intoxicated customer and sat down. This intoxicated customer then went to one of the Broken Oar staff members (what was said I have no idea). The staff members and this drunk customer walked away from the bar to the room with the gambling machines and stood on the opposite side of the room from where the machines were at. The intoxicated customer's irate behavior escalated even more and he started yelling and becoming belligerent. My friend went up to talk to the staff members and this intoxicated customer went up to my friends face leaving less than a half inch between the two of them and threatened to punch my friend in the face (all still while staff members stood saying nothing at all). When I went up to the staff members to tell them to diffuse this dangerous customer, my friend moved away from the customer. The customer then proceed to angrily throw a $5 bill at me, still staff members did NOTHING! When I tried to make an attempt to explain to the staff members what had happened (mind you I was not drunk), I was told that there was nothing they could do for me because this intoxicated customer was one of their regular customers. I'm sorry but I thought that you were supposed to treat all customers equally. I ended up having to give my driver's license to the staff member to photocopy it in case this intoxicated customer wanted to press charges.

So I do not recommend this place due to the fact that I was treated like scum and also allowed this intoxicated man to act so scary and hostile to their other paying customers. I felt threatened and scared to even walk out into the parking lot to leave since no one knew where this extremely intoxicated and angry "regular" customer went. You don't run a business like this and you don't treat respectable paying...

8.27.25 UPDATE! (Changed to 3 (couldn't give 5 as it did still happen)). Bonnie, the manager, finally reached out to us. And here's what she has to say regarding our unfortunate incident on the 17thbof Aug 2025. From Bonnie... "Yes, we did - unfortunately my manager on duty that day was completely unaware that any of this had transpired. She knew nothing of this incident, so we cannot answer as to what conversations took place between the parting customers. The attendant acted on his own in asking you to leave and not our normal protocol. He is no longer employed by Broken Oar. Please accept our apologies. We hope that you will visit us again in the future." Bonnie, thanx for reaching out to us. We do accept apologies & We will be back.

8.17.25 Having a wonderful time with my 70 year old mother and my 63 year old neighbor Iam 40 for context. was approached by a security guard saying I was accused of "making drinks". He told me if he saw that, I'd be kicked out. I assured him I wasn't. And that was that. 5 minutes later iam approached by another security guard who accused me of the same thing. Again I assured him that wasn't true and explained that some1 had already confronted us with that accusation. He asked to search me I complied. He searched my mother and neighbor, they complied. Not satisfied he went to kick us out. I cashed out showed him my receipt, he didn't care. Didn't look at it, just went along kicking us out. We had full drinks THAT WE DID PAY FOR $82.00 bill for 2 hours. How can n e 1 say we didn't pay and then kick us out with no proof. I asked for his name and the manager. He said" leave u are not getting that." How is this legal or acceptable. This security guard (very rude and disrespectful towards all of us) without n e proof embarrassed us and made us leave with out finishing drinks we all 3 paid 4. He was hired by Broken Oar, I asked to talk to his boss and he refused. If I had been pulled over by police i have the right to talk to the boss. Absolutely unprofessional and unacceptable. They stole money from me and mine. 3 drinks. Kicked us out with no proof. WE were more respectful then he was. LOOK AT CAMERAS BONNIE. TABLE 106.. The security guard in question should be fired due to his lack of professionalism. It was as if he was bullying my mother and neighbor. Wouldn't identify himself or get his boss? What kinda funny is that? The police have to. Why not this guy. Bet he beats women based on how he...

I've lived in Cary for almost 3 years now and have never gone to Broken Oar. I wanted sweet potato fries so I thought we could try them out finally. I definitely made a mistake.

We arrived to hear our server would be arriving shortly(she wasn't even there yet). The hostess took out drink order (Mermaid water and Oar Juice. Very expensive for the little amount of alcohol they use) and we waited for a server to arrive.

I ordered the Greens salad and added chicken. I asked for a side of Buffalo sauce with it and ordered a side of sweet potato fries. My mom ordered a chicken sandwich that had grilled chicken, cheese and BBQ sauce. She got the sauce on the side because some are too spicy for her.

The food arrived but there was no buffalo sauce or sweet potato fries. My mom and I also asked for a side of ranch. We sat at the table for 5 minutes watching our server stand by the bar. My mom got up to ask if we could at least get the sauces so we could start eating (she obviously forgot to put in the order for the fries) only to be told someone would bring them. We had to wait for the food runner to bring the fries so we could get the buffalo sauce and the ranch. It was infuriating watching our server just stand there. I don't know if this is SOP for Broken Oar but if it's not busy your guests should not be waiting almost 10 minutes to get a side of sauce that was requested with the order. The server never once apologized for not putting the full order in or for us having to wait.

The food wasn't great either. I feel if you are going to do something outside of the norm you need to mention it on the menu. A grilled chicken breast and a seasoned chicken breast are 2 different things. My mom had to take the chicken off her chicken sandwich because she doesn't do spicy/peppery seasoning. She would have ordered it plain if she knew it was seasoned. The sweet potato fries had cinnamon sugar seasoning and not salt and pepper like most other restaurants. I would not have ordered them if I knew this. They also charge $1.00 for each side of sauce and do not mention it.

Needless to say, we did not enjoy our experience and we will not be back. There are many other restaurants around with similar menus that don't over charge you and where the servers actually care...