Saltwater Grill — Restaurant in River Bend

We were excited to make our first visit for a Sunday family lunch after seeing the menu online. And, I am happy to say that the food did not disappoint! The serving sizes of the seafood platter, the fried shrimp and even the Ruben that we ordered was very generous (the shrimp were huge and very tasty) and all items were excellent. The shrimp and grits was a bit more like gumbo and was kind of a miss, not particularly bad but not great either. And, the menu prices are more than fair, even reasonable for the quality and quantity of the food itself.

The service was a different issue. I am not a fan of having to track down a server and beg for drink refills but that is what we had to do. The place was very uncrowded, maybe 4 other tables so that was not the issue. The server took our orders and then disappeared. There were two servers in the restaurant and we finally flagged the other one down to go find our server.

Then, when the meals started to arrive, one of our party did not get his meal. We were told by the server that she was going back to grab it. After 10 minutes of the rest of us waiting, I finally go up to see what was going on. I could not find my server or a manager, or anyone that seemed to be in charge so I finally pushed open the kitchen door to ask where the rest of our food was. Our waitress was in the kitchen and decides to give me a lecture on how long food preparation takes and begins to ague with me when I pressed her on the fact that the rest of the orders seemed to get cooked without issue. What I think actually happened, although she never owned up to it or apologized, was that she realized she left one of our orders off her list.

At any rate, this experience really put a damper on our lunch experience and the fact that there was no one to even elevate the issue to was very frustrating. Not sure who owns or runs this place but I hope they address this issue. What could have been a 5-star experience sadly turned out...

I’ll preface this by stating that each order i have done has been take out. Three of those meals were all “lunch” and the food has been phenomenal. No issues, fresh, hot, nothing missing. The one time i called about dinner everything went terribly. The fish tacos were wrong, we didn’t have the sauce or slaw with it, they originally fried the fish (so i asked them to make it grilled like on the menu..), the calamari was gross(we won’t order it again as it was extremely rubbery), the steak was over cooked by a lot and missing the accompaniment.

This interaction i was also told would take approx 20 minutes, i got to the restaurant after about 15 minutes. I ended up having to be inside the restaurant for 45 minutes… during this time there was ONE table of 3 people, (one other small group walked in in the last 10 minutes or so). The staff member was nice but very new (and ALONE). A lot of the issue seemed to maybe stem from a payment issue where she couldn’t put things in the system (made the comment i got food for cheaper). This issue SEEMED like it was what kept me there for an extra 40 minutes, but I’m not sure. Either way the consistency really concerned me about future orders. Also, you can’t find an accurate menu online for both services which is frustrating when ordering.

In response to the owner stating the menus are fixed online; i had a sneaking suspicion it would still be at least slightly wrong. So i called the river bend location to order the bacon jam burger. And they do not have that in their restaurant....

As River Bend residents, we had high hopes. After four visits, we have been left with underwhelming experiences. We have come to love the location in Swansboro, but the NB location does not compare.

The food has been ok, but nothing special. Some of the items we enjoyed have vanished from the menu...Short Ribs. Another gripe is the conflicting ambiance. Why have fancy white table linens and then serve beer from a can? Why have peaceful water views and hard rock music playing? Very strange..

The service has been pretty good and the servers all nice. The bar area is lacking in space & appeal and no draft beers are available to date. Also of concern are the prices. In order to keep the River Bend crowd, better prices or at least some sandwiches and burgers would be nice on the dinner menu.

Went for a late lunch last weekend. We each had a couple of beers that were on special. The devil eggs followed, and they were really good. My burger was decent, but nothing special and my GF had the fish and chips which again were just ok. With tip, I think we spent around $80. I don't mind paying higher prices for outstanding food, service & atmosphere- but this hasn't been the case.

We have not given up on Saltwater and hope that these comments are taken to heart. With some fine tuning, this could be an awesome restaurant. I hope to be able to edit my review to five stars in the...