Pawleys Island Tavern — Restaurant in South Carolina

I stayed up in Surfside last week and on Thursday 9/18/25 I took 3 of my friends with me to the PIT. I was excited to take them here as I stop here when I'm up this way and talked highly of this place. We got there around 2 and it was busy as usual. There was no one outside to seat us and we waited a few minutes. 2 waitresses were working outside but neither acknowledged us. They could have said we will be right with you. But they didn't. So we preceded to go inside. There were no signs that said wait to be seated and there was no one there. So we went ahead and sat at a table and you would have thought I would have committed a crime. We were ignored and never acknowledged. So I went up to the bar and asked the girl if we were supposed to seat ourselves as no one was outside or inside to do so. In a real ugly voice she said NO and walked away from me. I should have left then but I didn't. I walked down to the other side of the bar where she was and kindly asked her if she wanted us to move in another area and in a very ugly nasty voice told me that she only had 2 employees working and that she had everyone at the bar she had to tend to first and ring up before she could even get to us. Now she could have said it in a nicer way but what a witch. Not only that everyone at the bar (who were male might I add so if I were a man she probably would have been nicer) but everyone looked at me she was so loud. How humiliating. I could have caused a scene but I didn't. I walked away and went to the table and me and my friends got up and left and will never return to that place. I was not rude at all but God forbid we sat ourselves. I understand they were busy but the rudeness and nastiness was uncalled for. So your bartender just cost 4 customers plus their friends and family from going there again. Now I am sure they could careless but I wanted to share my experience and it was not a good one. Hopefully you will be able to hire more people and hopefully they will not be as nasty as this...

This place sucked!! First off, the wait for outside was ridiculous so we had to sit inside. We still had to wait a while and when we finally got sat they sat us right beside the door where they were going in and out constantly slamming the door. The waitress was terrible. She literally did the bare minimum! She never came and refilled my husbands water or my coke and the food took over 45 min to come out. We ordered two orders of wings and the Pit fries. We finally got our wings and the waitress told us they "burnt" our fries so she would have to get some more made... after we got through eating our wings, she finally brought the fries when we were done. The fries were nasty and extremely greesy. The only thing good about the food was the fact that the wings were good in size. However, while we we were eating there were tons of flies swarming around! I'm not kidding! We couldn't eat our food without them landing on our food. After 3 hours of being there the waitress finally came back to give us the check and then took another 20 min to give us our card back. I have worked in restaurant business and I know that the waitress could have tended to us a little bit more.. there were multiple waitresses around and there was only one that seemed to constantly be waiting on her table. I know that places can be busy but she definitely did not do her best. . On top of that the people that were there were not friendly.. my husband tried to get a beer at the bar and was next in line. The bartender knew he was standing there yet he served another guy that had just came up. It's just etiquette! Needless to say, if you're coming to just drink that's one thing but if you're coming for the food. We don't recommend it! We have stayed in Pawleys Island for 7 years and we thought we'd try it out but we will definitely not be...

If you haven't been before, you'll likely never find it from the road. We ended up circling back, parking in an adjacent parking lot and asking an ice cream parlor employee where it was located. (She walked outside and pointed it out to us... buried behind lots of spanish moss laden trees, which conceal it from the road.)

It was a Tuesday night and we sat outside. The ambiance was uniquely "jungle eclectic". When we arrived about 5:30 or so we were seated quickly and there was still plenty of seating available. The restaurant started filling up after 6 pm and by the time we left around 6:45, there was a small line of people waiting to be seated. (So unless you want to wait for a table, arrive before 6 pm.)

The food is good, as are the prices. Our bill for seafood dinner and (4) cocktails was $66 (including tax).

Any of the crab dishes are the bomb! Had a bowl of the She Crab bisque ($7), which had lots of yummy chunks of crab. Wife ordered the Crab Cake Sandwich ($14) which had almost no filler -- just lots of chunky crabmeat. (See attached photos.) The homemade potato chips are very good, the chilled crab dip is a nice compliment to them ($10).

I wanted to order the scallops but they were sold out, so I had the shrimp po boy ($11), which was very good (though perhaps not as good as the scallops would have been). The only thing we ordered that I found disappointing was the potato salad. Almost no flavor and slices of potato were too big. I won't order it again.

Happy Hour runs until 7 pm... $1 off cocktails when made with house brand liquor. (Our seabreezes were $4.50 each!)

I shaved one star because our waitress was not exceptionally friendly. Perhaps she was having...