Hilton Head Dining Suggestions

[DisneyStarWisher]

We ate at Dye's lunch buffet about 2 years ago, and came back for the Friday evening buffet. A main entree at lunch was fried chicken, which was tasty. DH thinks Dye makes the best greens he's ever had. Check out the menu at the link below. You can get the buffet only on certain days for lunch.

We'd read lots of posts that if you don't have a reservation, you might not feel very welcomed. Dye was in the kitchen and didn't come out for 5 minutes to seat us, even after someone told her we were standing at the front door. At least we weren't surprised and expected the wait would be worth it. She's a very hard working lady.

We didn't stop for lunch until ~ 1:15 and it looked like most people come earlier than that ..... everything was getting picked over. Dye said she was making some more fried chicken, but we were hungry and found plenty to eat with the food that was there. Her restaurant is small and she seemed more interested in serving a good meal of fresh food over the course of a shorter period of time than packing people in or keeping the buffet open for hours. Since we were the last ones in the restaurant, we got a chance to talk with her when she wasn't as busy. She was a very, very interesting person who became quite friendly and told us a lot about her food and the gullah culture. It sounded like she knew some of the DVC staff and appreciated that they recommended her restaurant to DVCers.

Eating at Dye's was a special experience that we will definitely do whenever we can get to go to HH again. We talk about Dye at least once a month and periodically look at her menu, just to remind us of the time we got to spend there.

http://www.dyesgullahfixins.com

We just got back from Dye's lunch buffet. It was absolutely wonderful! I agree with your DH; I also think Dye makes the BEST greens ever. Like you, we were the last ones in the restaurant, and she spent some time talking with us. She was very friendly and seemed more open than when we first arrived. I was surprised to find that she is probably closing her doors at the end of this year. The good news is she is looking for another place to open more of a take-out place with a fresh-food market also. Even though I will miss her buffet, as long as I can get some of her good home-cooking, I will be happy. I highly recommend this place, and I'm sure her future place will be just as good! Good luck to Dye!

 

[wdwdano@yahoo.com]

http://smokehousehhi.com/

I love this place as well as

http://www.bonefishgrill.com/locator/details/hilton-head-island-south-carolina/

 

[kda]

We just got back from Dye's lunch buffet. It was absolutely wonderful! I agree with your DH; I also think Dye makes the BEST greens ever. Like you, we were the last ones in the restaurant, and she spent some time talking with us. She was very friendly and seemed more open than when we first arrived. I was surprised to find that she is probably closing her doors at the end of this year. The good news is she is looking for another place to open more of a take-out place with a fresh-food market also. Even though I will miss her buffet, as long as I can get some of her good home-cooking, I will be happy. I highly recommend this place, and I'm sure her future place will be just as good! Good luck to Dye!

Thanks so much for posting this, although DH and I are sad to hear that Dye may close her restaurant. We frequently talk about going back there. But, I've also thought how great it would be to be able to get chicken, greens, salads as take out. HH is such a wonderful place to relax and we eat in the room more often there than when at WDW. We wish her the best, too!

 

[Joyciemc]

We just got back from Hilton Head (it was our first time there) and we loved it so much... especially the food!

Skull Creek Boathouse was recommended by a local and it rocked!
Lowcountry Backyard was so welcoming and the food was delicious!

There were a lot of places we wanted to try, but not enough meals in the day

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

Well, we decided to try Skull Creek Boathouse last night. I was shocked at how busy it was, being off-season and all. We waited about 30 minutes for our table, the ONLY time we have had to wait anywhere on this trip. We had asked for a table inside since it had a shorter wait, but we were actually able to get a table outside. The atmosphere outside was nice, but I have to say the service was extremely slow. We enjoyed the food, but the slow service made the whole experience less than enjoyable. It makes me wonder how slow it is in the summer, which is usually when we come to HHI.

Tonight we ate at Kingfisher. We were tired after a 6-hour fishing excursion and didn't want to drive anywhere. I now wish we had driven anywhere. We tried this place two years ago, and I don't remember it being bad. But tonight it was terrible. I ordered a broiled seafood medley. My food was so overbaked and dry I couldn't eat it. I wasn't very hungry though so I didn't complain. Everyone else said their food wasn't great either. I do have to say I LOVE their she-crab soup, very good!

Tomorrow, I'm planning on getting One Hot Mammas to go, and then we are going to Alligator Grille to use our restaurant.com coupon. Hope these places are good!

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

Well, we are home. I didn't have time to tell you all about my dining experiences on the last day of our trip. We got One Hot Mamma's to go. A great deal at 19.99! I loved their pulled pork and baked beans. Coleslaw was just ok. Next time, I will try their macaroni and cheese. I also ordered the chocolate BBQ ribs just because they sounded so interesting. Everyone just said they were ok; I couldn't get past the smell. It's a weird feeling knowing you are about to stick a rib in your mouth but smell chocolate. Not for me.

For dinner, we went to Alligator Grille. We went fairly late since we weren't very hungry, and I think that was a mistake. My DS13 ordered Alligator Gumbo which he ate but later said he wasn't crazy about. My DS15 and I ordered sushi, which we loved! I ordered jumbo sea scallops for my entree, but within a few minutes our server came out and said they were out of them. I was so looking forward to some scallops before I left the island! So I ordered the shrimp with mushroom whipped potatoes. They ended up being very good. My DS13 ordered grouper which he liked, and my DS15 ordered the fried shrimp and crabcakes. He liked the shrimp, but the crabcakes, not so much. The problem was my DH's meal. He ordered surf and turf. He is allergic to a lot of shellfish, but he can eat shrimp and scallops, which is what the meal came with. When we found out they were out of scallops, they offered him a lobster tail, which he can't eat, so he got extra shrimp. The problem was the filet which was stringy and overcooked. He was not happy, but probably what made him less happy was our less than stellar service. Because it was so late, our server was too busy cleaning off tables in other areas than refilling our drinks. At one point, we had almost 8 glasses completely empty (each person had a drink and a water glass). But my DH is not one to complain. What really unnerved us though was when the server brought the bill. The tip was handwritten in on our bill. The catch was that it was for more than 20%! I asked him to run the bill through for the total, excluding the tip. He did. I then included a tip that I felt justified the service (more like 15.5%). I completely forgot that 20% was supposed to be added in. I only remembered that it stated to base the tip on the amount before the discount, which I did. When I got back to the resort, I looked at my certificate online and realized I was supposed to give 20%. So I called the restaurant with my credit card in hand, willing to give the extra 4.5%, but NOT what the server had written in. The manager told me that we had done exactly what we should have done. He even offered for us to come back and they would charge half-price. I told him I appreciated the offer but that it was our last night on the island and that we would probably try them again one day.

So overall, we had some good dining on the island. Can't wait to get back to try some more out!

 

[hbehrman]

We just got back on Friday (late) from HHI as we stayed until about 4:30PM. I would highly recommend:

Guiseppi's (sp)
One Hot Mama (kids eat for cheap on Thursday dinner)
Roastfish and Cornbread (especially this, not as far away as you think)

on a previous stay we did:

Steamers
Sea Shack

which are also recommended. If you just need basic chinese takeout Dragon Express was quite good as well.