Open Water Grill

Reviews 4

DO

Donna Brihn

I really feel an obligation to post about what an utter disappointment our dinner at OWG was and how ridiculously overpriced it was. Weve been visiting OBX for 20 year, we spend a lot of time dining out and we dont mind spending money but we expect the food to be worth it. Owg was not only not worth it, half the food was no edible. We should have known when we arrived at 5pm on a Friday and the restaurant was completely empty. We sat down and started to look at the menu. Drink order: they have non-description wines and Ive no desire to spend money on some box wine so we stick to soft drinks. Except theyre out of Coke, on a Friday night at 5pm, on 4th of July weekend, in a tourist town. At this point, my instincts are saying, "Run! Its not too late to eat somewhere else!" I ignore my instinct. I order the "Amazing garden salad" (their words, NOT mine) supposed to be greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheddar cheese and croutons. Waitress had no idea what dressing they had. My salad comes out with a mushy, bad tomato, no cheese, no croutons. Alrighty then. Hubby and my daughter got the soup. It was watery and devoid of any flavor and there wasnt any crab in the she-crab soup. My instinct is now kicking me, hard. I ordered the filet mignon with mashed potatoes and asparagus. It comes out with this gross, nuclear-reactor affected stuff that is masquerading as a veggie mix but in odd, day-glo colors that have never occurred in nature. I was downright scared. Where, I ask our waitress, is my asparagus? Oh, we dont have any, she tells me. I say, but I confirmed the meal came with potatoes and asparagus and YOU said yes?! She looks at me awkwardly. Obviously, they run this game all the time. It was then that I knew I would be writing a review, to spare everyone of this gross eating experience. My steak is also an odd color. I swear, they might have cooked a filet mignon in the microwave. It tasted like nothing. Not a flake of spice on it and the steak must be the poorest quality you can possible find. My potatoes have no butter, no gravy. No offer of either. And I was the lucky one. Hubby and daughters food is completely cold. Bad enough its terrible food, now its cold, terrible food. Hubbys Rib-eye was not 14-oz as advertised, devoid of any flavor or spices, lots of grizzle. He also had the nuclear-reactor veggie mix. Gross. Ive seen little kids plastic toy food that looked more appealing than that veggie mix. Both him and my daughter had shrimp. Considering we were sitting just feet from the beautiful Sound, it seemed particularly cruel that the shrimp were rubbery and gross. I would point out that just locating yourself near the water isnt enough. You need a cook that knows how to cook. Obviously, your cook cannot even handle a veggie mix so I suppose I should not have been surprised when he or she also ruined the steaks, shrimp, and soup. The final moment of regret came when the bill arrived. Now, let me tell you that I will pay very good money for a great meal. I have had much higher bills than this one and not blinked an eye over it. I will spend more than this at Owens and Kill Devil Grill. I will spend much more than this at an excellent italian restaurant in my home area. But paying a $114 bill for food that wasnt at all good, warm, or what was promised in your menu really upsets me. Reading the other reviews, it would seem you know your food is gross. It seems you run the same game about being "out" of asparagus, you leave stuff off of peoples salads. (PS the people at the next take also got the awesome salad and had cheese and croutons. I was so annoyed. I guess our waitress was just too lazy to make my whole salad?) So I paid my bill, tipped the lazy waitress that lied to us... and then decided I would leave this review in every location I can find so that no one ever wastes their time and money eating at your restaurant.

PH

Phil Smith

I already have low expectations when dining at the beach somewhere with a nice view. I get it. Sit back and enjoy your vacation. But man, this place shattered what little faith I had left in beach restaurateurs. We were one of four tables seated. We waited about 20 minutes just to get menus because they didnt have any more than the eleven sitting at the one other table that was ordering. This was not a good sign. Several items listed on the printed menu (already wildly different from that posted on their website) were not actually available. Not a special dish they happened to run out of, just "we dont have that". The last of our ordered food arrived 1 hour and 20 minutes after we sat down. Two burgers were grossly over-done. My medium-rare was well done, and the medium-well was shall we say "burnt to a crisp". Randomly, the bun was even a different kind than mentioned on the menu. I could go into detail about the culinary creativity (none noted) or how the food tasted (um, salty?), but really, lets stick to the very basics of operating a restaurant. This was a gigantic fail. Ok, lets just get our check and leave? No. "That will be a little while with our system." After hurriedly packing up our half-eaten food (it was 8:45 after all), we drove home. Along the way, my wife asked "does our daughter have a poopy diaper?" I truthfully had to reply that no, that was the smell wafting from my uneaten cobb salad. That pretty much sums up our night at the Open Water Grill. At least it was a memorable experience.

JO

Jon Scheuerer

By far the worst place weve ever eaten at. We walked in and the place was dead. The placement of everything was weird and not set up properly. I ordered a beer and it was fine because it was in a bottle. my girlfriend order a margarita and it was yellow when it came out. not the typical green and tasted like nothing but lemons. We order their pretzel appetizer which only came out with mustard and ranch dressing which was nasty and their Scallop Margarita appetizer. CLEARLY the scallops were frozen and in little squares. it tasted terrible. now we were just disgusted. We had already placed our order for entrees but we got up and told them we wanted to cancel our order but they said it was already done, so we decided to try it. we ordered the fish tacos entree and a fish and chips entree. FIRST off the fish tacos entree had 2 fish tacos that was it for 17$ Then the fish and chips entree had only 3 pieces of fish and some thin terrible fries for 19$. Both fish Entrees were frozen fish not FRESH and we didnt even it it. We ended up having to pay a 70$ bill for food we didnt even eat. We drove down the road and went to BROS Sandwich shop for dinner and they had GREAT food. Stay away from open water grill ( OWG ) their food is nasty. service stinks and the place is a ran down joke.

DA

Dawn Gibson

Came here last year and LOVED it so looked forward to it tonight. Called ahead was told reservations werent required, no mention that they were recommended. Party of six, it was 530, no indoor table available. There were empty tables, but they were "reserved" . Seated outside at the end near a heat pump blowing out hot air. Ordered oysters..came back and told us they didnt have any. Oysters were in 4 of their appetizers. What? So we ordered our entrees...one had a large long hair baked into it. Sent it back and asked to speak to manager. He never came and had our poor waitress deal with it. Reordered it and in the meantime our 4 year old found ANOTHER hair in her shrimp. Our seasonal vegetables were frozen from a bag..not fresh. My sons stir fry also not fresh..clearly frozen. Never saw a manager.. nothing was done other than the poor waitress apologizing profusely. Needless to say well never eat there again. Just an addendum..another couple sent their food back also as we were sitting there. Everything that could been done badly was....just dont waste your money it still cost over 120 bucks