Purple Onion Cafe — Restaurant in Shallotte

We went here because we were staying Ocean Isle and wanted burgers. Our first choice (Beaches Burgers) was closed so we decided based on reviews to go give this place a try.

I ordered the Greek Burger and my wife ordered the Mushroom Swiss Burger. The waitress asked if we wanted the homemade chips to go with it, but we were feeling more like fries so we ordered the regular fries with a side of sweet potato fries. Since we heard 'homemade chips' as a side we assumed the fries would be like nice thick dirty steak fries, homemade. They were far from it. We got crinkle cut fries that were as white as could be, and tasted worse than institutional cafeteria fare. I'm 100% sure they were not homemade at all, and probably pulled out of a frozen french fry bag and heated up (not deep fried). On top of that, they had zero salt or seasoning on them and had no taste till I slathered them with ketchup. The sweet potato fries were slightly better, but were more like shoestrings instead of a nice thick fry. Again, very little taste.

On to the burgers .. both of our burgers were overcooked and dry, and had no seasoning or taste AT ALL - the only thing that gave mine any flavor was the greek vinaigrette dressing on mine and the feta, and the caramelized onions on my wife's were pretty good but her actual meat patty had no taste either. The bun was maybe the best thing about the sandwich.

The overall impression I got of the whole meal was that NOTHING was seasoned or had any taste. I felt like i was eating Meals on Wheels for senior citizens. For someplace like this that sounds online like it should be serving gourmet recipes, it was a huge disappointment.

We ordered a cannoli to go for dessert, and it was odd. Tasted halfway ok, but the topping was like a hardened confectioners sugar drizzled on top which seemed out of place on a cannoli.

If you're expecting something like a gourmet cafe, I don't think you'll find it here. Unless they perfect the art of seasoning food well, we won't be back. I'll try Beaches Burgers in Ocean...

Visited here while on vacation and sat a while before our drink order was taken. Coffee was watery and burnt. We started with the fried green tomatoes, which were perfectly fine, just needed salt. The main issue came with the service.

When asked what the soup of the day was, our server had a hard time remembering. When asked what was in the chilli, she said “I honestly have no idea. Beans?”

I ordered a half salad with a half turkey Reuben. My husband ordered a plain cheeseburger, nothing on it.

When our food arrived, I had a turkey bacon avocado, and my husband had a cheese burger with everything on it. I told our waitress “oh this was supposed to be a turkey Reuben” to which she replied “no. You told me turkey bacon avocado.” I just stared at her because I’m not interested in arguing with someone about a sandwich. She broke the awkward silence with “but did you actually want a turkey Rueben instead? You know what you can keep this sandwich and I’ll go have them make the other” in my head was thinking “yes you are correct, I do in face want the sandwich I ordered rather than this one…”

She had the kitchen remake the sandwich and was very apologetic which was nice. We decided not to bother her about my husband’s burger because I was already feeling uncomfortable and like a bother.

She asked if we wanted to take the incorrect sandwich home, and I declined. It didn’t seem right to take a sandwich that I didn’t order, and I didn’t want it to seem like I was trying to take advantage of the business.

Will we give the purple onion another try? Probably. She could have been new or just...

We have always loved the Purple Onion! Food is absolutely delicious so it is hard to write this bad review. My husband and I visited on Sunday, April 23, 2023 and we were second on the list. We were promised breakfast (what we went for) and 2 more families that came in after us were promised breakfast as well-before they switched over to lunch. We asked the hostess if we could sit outside and she said yes-she would come get us. After a about 15 minutes of others going in we decided to check on our spot.She said they had seated our name-we were a party of 2 and they accidentally set a party of 4 that came in later. They apologized and we told them no worries-mistakes happen. We just wanted breakfast and wanted to make sure we could still order it since the mistake was on their end. She said no, she was sorry they messed up but we could not get breakfast. First, we were second in line and they set a wrong table, then we could not get breakfast which they had promised, lastly-they said there was a table in front of us even though they set wrong people. Sad that we had to experience such poor...