Riverview Cafe

Just because we are on vacation, doesn’t mean we pause our Dining with Dad tradition. In fact, going to Riverview Cafe is a tradition that we started years ago. Every year we travel down to North Carolina and stay in a house in North Topsail Beach. These beach house rentals go from Saturday to Saturday. We always stay at this house if anyone is interested in vacationing there. You will have a great time for sure! We used to drive down from Ohio early Saturday morning but decided years ago to drive down on Friday instead and get it over with. We just stay in a hotel on Friday night and then are fresh for our beach vacation on Saturday.

My brother Jason has lived in this area for many many years being a retired Marine stationed in nearby Jacksonville, NC. I asked him for recommendations on places to eat and Riverview Cafe was one of the places he told me about. This worked out well since the hotel we were staying at was in Sneads Ferry, NC. After our first meal years ago, we knew this had to become a Friday night tradition when going on vacation.

We were lucky enough to get a booth seat by one of the windows over looking the water. We drive pretty much non-stop on Friday so by the time we get there, we are all very hungry and ready to eat. Shortly after being seated, we get the appetizer we’ve been waiting all day for, the HUSH PUPPIES!!

To be honest, I could just fill up on these. They are so delicious and addicting as well. But, we really should take advantage of having fresh local seafood so we go ahead and order a meal. Alex, being allergic to shellfish is limited to real fish. He has finally found what he likes and now gets the Fried Flounder. Chloe has discovered she loves that too and can get shrimp at other restaurants later in the week, so she too went with the flounder. I went with the shrimp, along with some slaw and “tater babies”.

While I was inside taking care of the check, Alex and Chloe headed out back to the water. When I got out there I found them trying to skip rocks across the water. Always a classic kid activity. And maybe an adult one too to be honest. Of course I had to interrupt to take their picture.

The last thing the kids love about this place is the wild cats that are always hanging around waiting to be fed some leftovers from the various patrons. We’ve been known to feed them ourselves, but today there were no leftovers. Sorry kitties! When we arrived we didn’t see any of them, but found one laying by the Jeep when we came out to leave. Chloe of course attempted to get close enough to pet it, but was unsuccessful.