Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

Today I want to tell you about restaurants in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There might be a few fancy restaurants around the area, but we chose a few smaller eateries instead. Some friends of ours told us about the Bad Bean Baja Grill so that’s the first place we headed. The restaurant is located in Kitty Hawk, just a few miles south of Duck. I ordered the Taco Salad. It was the best taco salad I’ve ever eaten and I’ve eaten a lot of taco salads. The food had a different sort of favor. I’m really not sure how to describe it but to just tell you it was different. It was different in a really good way. I opted to add beef brisket to my salad. It was absolutely delicious. My husband ordered a burrito and it was huge. He loved his meal too. It’s the only place we swore to revisit before our journey home.

Restaurants in the Outer Banks

The Bad Bean Baja Grill Taco Salad

Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

Duck Duck Burgers is another day for lunch. The restaurant is located on Highway 12 right there in Duck on the opposite side of the street from the Boardwalk. It was a cute little burger place that seemed a little bit retro. We liked the atmosphere there. The burgers were a bit expensive for our tastes. After pricing a $12 burger, we noticed that most toppings costs an extra $1.00 per topping! We thought that was outrageous. The meal was OK. It was close to our resort and the food was good. It wasn’t $15 dollars good, but still good. As far as restaurants in the Outer Banks goes, if you are staying in Duck, you have to drive a little ways to get to most of the restaurants. Most of them are down in the Kitty Hawk, Nags Head area. This little place is right there in Duck so you don’t have to go far for a burger. You just have to be prepared to pay more for it than you might be accustomed to paying. Here are a few pictures of the place.

Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

If you won’t mind a 20 or maybe a 30 minute drive over to Roanoke Island, you will want to eat at the Avenue Waterfront Grill. It sits right on the water. We were fortunate enough to get a table right by the window where we could view the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse. We like inexpensive meals which is the reason we don’t go to fancy restaurants much. I wouldn’t necessarily consider this a fancy restaurant. Casual attire is perfectly fine, but it is one of the nicer places we visited. It was just a little bit pricy but the food was fabulous and the view was even better.

Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

I only took the photo above because I smiled at the political statement.

Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

The view from our dining table was nice.

Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

The dining room was large and airy. It was such a nice place to enjoy an evening meal by the water.

There are many more restaurants in the Outer Banks area of North Carolina. These are just a few of the ones we visited while we were there. Maybe someday we’ll get a chance to go back!

Read about other great places to visit in the Outer Banks of North Carolina here.

Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

Of all the things we did while we were visiting the Outer Banks, I think my favorite attraction was the Lost Colony Drama on Roanoke Island. I remember studying about the lost colony as early as my elementary school days. I’ve always loved history and this story captured my attention from the first time I heard it. What happened to those first colonists? Jamestown was the first successful English colony but the colony of Roanoke was the first actual attempt at an English colony in the New World.

The Lost Colony Drama on Roanoke Island

In July 1587, 117 English colonists (men, women, and children) came to what is now American soil to establish the first English colony. 1n 1590, just three years later, the colonists’ governor returned from England with supplies to sustain the colony. They found the area deserted. There was no sign of the colonists except for two small clues. On an abandoned structure was written the word “Croatoan.” The letters “CRO” was carved into a tree. Now, more than 400 years later, we still have no idea what happened to that small settlement of men, women, and children. There are theories, but no one knows for certain what happened to them.

You can learn more about The Lost Colony here.

For me, it was serene to stand there on those grounds among the same trees where the colonists would have built their homes. I looked around and wondered what had happened a few hundred years ago on the very spot where I was standing. Was there some sort of battle? An attack? Or did these people simply move to a new place so that they could survive until help and new supplies arrived from England? I doubt we’ll ever know.

If you get a chance to visit the visitor’s center on Roanoke Island, you can view artifacts from the colonists. They know they are from the colonists because they have dated the items to those times. Archeologists can determine what items were English and which ones were native. We couldn’t take photos but looking at those items was interesting. They still find things. One of the artifacts we saw was found by a visitor as late as 2008.

When we stepped outside the back door of the visitors’ center, we stepped onto the same grounds where the colonists had lived before they disappeared.

Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

The monument in the photo above was placed there in 1896. It marks the area where historians believe the colonists lived before they disappeared.

Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

The drama was awesome. I wasn’t all that impressed at first. I’ve always considered this subject a serious one. I didn’t like some of the humor, I suppose. It got better though. I ended up enjoying the play. If you visit Roanoke, be sure to see the play.

Image Credit: Abundant Family Living

Be sure to check out The Lost Colony here while planning your trip. They present different dramas on different days so you’ll want to plan your trip to Roanoke Island for the drama you want to see.

Read about other great places to visit in the Outer Banks of North Carolina here.

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Tuesday, June 28, 2016