Enjoying Seafood on the Coast of the Carolinas

gregorymaness
Jan 16
3 min read

One of the things that I miss the most following my decades of living on the Southeastern North Carolina coast is the abundant, readily available, and delicious seafood that I enjoyed eating when I lived there. There was certainly no shortage of excellent and good seafood restaurants when I lived in the Wilmington area.

My family moved to North Carolina before I entered kindergarten. My father had been stationed at Fort Bragg as a member of the vaunted 82nd Airborne Division before I was born and had friends living in the Wilmington area. I have some vivid memories of my first days in coastal North Carolina. We initially lived in the Monterey Heights neighborhood north of Pleasure Island, but it wasn’t long before we moved to the sleepy (at least during the offseason) beach town of Kure Beach. I would ultimately go on to live in a number of locations on Pleasure Island until I moved away from the coast for a job and a change of scenery in my late-20s.

I have fond memories pertaining to the tasty seafood that I enjoyed during my time living on the North Carolina coast. Easter dinners at Big Daddy’s in Kure Beach were a thing. As a young child I enjoyed casual dinners with my family at Smitty’s just across US Highway 421 from Big Daddy’s near the fishing pier. My first real job was at Steve’s Calabash in Carolina Beach where I briefly worked as a busboy and a couple of my later years were spent working as a busboy, a dishwasher, and a bartender at Sweetwater Cafe located on the docks of the Carolina Beach municipal marina. I had friends and family members that worked at those same restaurants and at other area seafood restaurants.

Living away from the coast in the Triad and the Triangle regions of North Carolina, I could also readily avail myself of a tasty seafood dinner and the coast was still just a couple short hours away. The Friday fish fry is a thing here in the Midwest, particularly in Wisconsin’s supper clubs. I can get seafood here in the Midwest and I have. I have enjoyed some shrimp boils both at home and at an area restaurant. But I miss being able to conveniently order up a piled-high platter of Calabash-style fried popcorn shrimp, coleslaw, and hush puppies. My most recent visits to coastal communities like Hilton Head Island, Savannah, and New Orleans have invariably included a number of seafood lunches and dinners. It is part of the coastal experience and it feels like coming home.

Anyway, after my mind drifted away to pleasant memories of delicious seafood, I explored the Southern Living website and found some interesting articles and recipes. I figured that I would share them with any other wayward pirates that might happen upon my humble blog. I have included links to an article on North Carolina fish camps, an article on the coastal community of Calabash, an article on hush puppies, recipes for preparing fried shrimp and hush puppies in the air fryer, a recipe for preparing a shrimp boil, an article containing tips on preparing a shrimp boil, and the website for Big Daddy’s Restaurant, the Kure Beach restaurant that was one of my earliest experiences with North Carolina seafood and a source of fond memories from my childhood. Enjoy!

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