Don’s Seafood & Steak House

Four wonderful meals for us tonight. Fried flounder and trout were very tasty. Hush puppies were great. Salad bar was very clean and had many fresh toppings. Large crowd on a Friday night is a great sign that this is community favorite! We’ll be back!

We have family who eats here religiously every week so we end up here every visit. There is always a wait for tables and the place is huge. I will never understand why it remains so popular. Service is friendly and consistent. Food is mediocre at best.
Décor is the same dated faux paneling and vinyl seats as the first time i ate there 25 years ago. And yes, it was dated then.
The food is mostly plain and overcooked, and fried, fried, fried. The grilled chicken and salmon are edible. The steak tips are downright scary, dried out and smothered in canned gravy. There are some fresh veggies but the salad bar has delicacies such as canned mushrooms and fruit cocktail, imitation bacon bits, and that stuff with the marshmallows and mandarin oranges.
This is very much a locals hangout, the official place to see and be seen in Wilkesboro. I guess only the locals get it. I sure don’t.

I am sorry I can only give them two stars because I actually like them, but a review is no good without honesty. There isn’t a whole lot to choose from in Wilkesboro, and I love their Grilled Salmon! Forget Red Lobster (which just opened here); their salmon is not near as good.
I think because they have such short hours: evenings Thursday and Friday, lunch and dinner Saturday, and lunch Sunday, their seafood is always fresh. If they run out of Salmon, my heart is broken.
My husband usually gets their combo plate of Fried Scallops & Oysters, and they are always really fresh. I always enjoy the baked sweet potato that comes with the meal.
So you are probably wondering why a two? This place is very outdated. And it has become sadder in just the couple years I have been coming here. The locals love it: everybody seems to know each other and it is not unusual for people to visit at each other’s tables, while the waitress sits herself down with friends in between orders. It’s a comfortable atmosphere, but you feel like you are in the fifties, and that nothing has been upgraded since then.
The salad bar is extremely limited, the coleslaw often less than cold, no real butter, and their health food score has dropped to 92.5.
If it wasn’t for the salmon…

Very outdated place, value of food is not good, huh puppies over cooked and mushy. Busboys very loud with dishes with an old style cart as outdated as the place. Trash on floors and in seats.

When I’m in the mood for seafood in Wilkes, this is where I always end up. The quality of their food is good and always consistent. The staff is always friendly and the restaurant appears clean.
It would be nice if they updated the interior every couple of decades. It’s comfortable but horribly outdated. The hours of the restaurant are a bit strange as well. They’re only open a few days a week and during those open hours are generally crowded.
Overall the seafood and the experience is good and worth waiting ’till they open.

From the outside, this place doesn’t look like much of anything. But I was very much surprised. The food was actually good and I found myself saying that I would actually go back.
I orderd the frog legs only because I never had them before and I like to try new things. I scanned their menu and the frog legs stood out. The rest of the menu was typical seafood fare. And by typical, I guess I was comparing it to Mayflower Seafood, which reminds me of this place.
Our waitress for the night was very nice and knew what she was doing. We were a large party and sometimes you can tell when your server is ‘overwhelmed’ with a large party, but our waitress did great. She even suggested to try the frog legs fried. Apparently you can get it boiled and baked, I believe. She said since I never had them before to try it fried, since as we all know, most everything tastes better fried.
It was a good choice. The frog legs were yummy. At times, it tasted like ‘seafood’ but for the most part, it was like chicken. My plate came with 3 frog legs, slaw, fries and hush puppies.
Everyone in my party enjoyed their food and no one had one complaint regarding their food… well, one guy did have to wait a few minutes to eat because his plate wasn’t brought out with ours. Our waitress said she would bring out our food all at the same time, but I guess he was the forgotten one.
Another lesson learned for me — never judge a place by the looks on the outside… this place has yummy food and friendly people.