Topsail Island Restaurants

A restaurant worth visiting is on the approach to the swing bridge to Surf City. In the Heritage Square shopping plaza is Quartermasters Restaurant & Tavern, which offers a restaurant as well as a lively, casual tavern filled with television screens and full sports programming packages.

The extensive menu at Quartermasters includes items such as crab dip appetizers, seafood platters of all types and combinations, and Skully’s Dirty Chicken, a popular dish they developed in their former restaurant in Topsail Beach. The tavern opens daily at 4 while the dining room opens at 5.

On Topsail Island in Surf City, you should visit Mainsail Restaurant, located at 404 Roland Avenue. Here the owners, brothers Michael and Stephen Pasquantonio, present pasta as it should be done, fresh seafood with delicious sauces such as chipotle and creamy dill, steaks cooked to order and daily specials. They offer a kids menu, have a full bar, and are open daily year round from 5 p.m. Upstairs at Mainsail is the Commodore Room, a perfect place for wedding receptions, special birthday dinners or family reunions; live music is offered several times during the summer at the Commodore Room. Mainsail also offers full catering services, both on site and off.

Visit Daddy Mac’s Beach Grille, located on N. Shore Drive, for a memorable experience. The smoke free restaurant has an oceanfront dining deck and large windows that offer a panoramic view of the Atlantic. The Pasquantonio brothers are the new owners and since they reopened the restaurant in February 2009, food and service have improved dramatically. In addition to daily seafood specials, pasta, steaks and crab cakes are on the menu. And if you love fork-tender baby back ribs, this is the place to have them. The restaurant has a menu for kids and elevator access too. Daddy Mac’s is open for dinner only.

You’ll find authentic Reuben sandwiches on delicious rye bread at the New York Corner Deli in Surf City. A large selection of delicious deli meats and all the salads you’d expect, including excellent egg salad, macaroni salad, potato salad, etc., all homemade, are served. Upstairs you’ll have a view of the ocean if you can turn your eyes from the New York memorabilia that graces the walls. Be sure to try the rice pudding – it’s the best you’ll find south of the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan. The New York Corner Deli is open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner year-round.

Beach Shop and Grill certainly enjoys a wonderful reputation for the quality of their service as well as the food. A restaurant at Topsail Beach at the south side of the island is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. The restaurant closes after their luncheon service on January 1 and reopens in March each year.

The restaurant is casual during breakfast and lunch service. Dinner service is different however, with most people feeling more comfortable wearing island casual clothing since linens and candles are placed on the tables.

Menus for all three meals are extensive. Numerous egg dishes, pancakes and breakfast sandwiches are among the eye-opener meals offered. Lunch features salads and sandwiches, and many consider their hamburgers the best on the beach. Dinner consists of steaks, fresh local fish, seafood served broiled or fried and such specialties as shrimp and grits. Beach Shop Grill, which has been in business on Topsail since 1952, has all ABC permits, a very extensive list of wines including some superb ones at prices lower than most others for the same bottles, and a large assortment of craft beers. Be sure to save room for key lime pie with mile high meringue, baked on site by owner Cheryl Price, a master pastry chef