2025 Nags Head Coffee Guide

Since its opening in early January 2012, Café Lachine has become a popular stop for fresh deli sandwiches and salads, and truly delectable homemade baked treats and breads. Better still, the menu, written on chalk on the wall, is interesting, healthy and reasonably priced.  Cold sandwiches include chicken or egg salad, BLT and turkey and guacamole with pepper jack.  Hot sandwiches range from shrimp po’ boy on hoagie, pesto grilled chicken on brioche and Cuban press.  Other choices include orzo pesto salad, fruit salad and tabbouleh salads. All food is made on the premises. Box lunches, which change daily, are also available, with a choice of one sandwich (chicken salad or egg salad croissant or turkey and provolone wrap), and a cup of soup, a side, dessert and a canned drink.  Breakfast is served all day, and coffee and specialty drinks are also offered.  Starting out with just a few tables, this attractive eatery on the north corner of Outer Banks Mall soon expanded next door with a small dining room.

Front Porch Cafe is a locally-owned coffee shop where you can get your caffeine (or decaf!) fix while enjoying a pastry or cookie and surfing the free wifi. You’ll be in good company too, as this coffee shop is a favorite place for locals and visitors.

This charming breakfast and lunch restaurant is the Outer Banks version of an old-fashioned diner, complete with a counter and stools, retro pink or green vinyl and metal chairs and tables, and big comfortable booths.   With affordable Southern favorites, Grit’s Grill, situated on the north wing of the Outer Banks Mall,  is usually packed, but the service is fast.  And yes, they have grits, creamy and lump-free, just choose your topping, whether it’s shrimp, sausage gravy, green onions, bacon, or cheddar cheese. There are other standards available like omelets, hash browns, chipped beef over toast, eggs any style and huge fluffy biscuits.  Try the seafood omelet, an Outer Banks specialty. Lunch offers more classic fare, including sandwiches, hamburgers, soups, salads and grilled cheese, of course.  T-shirts and other souvenirs are also available for sale. 

Cozy and welcoming, Morning View offers a variety of fresh-roasted coffee and organic teas and a great place to sip and enjoy. There are comfortable chairs and a few tables where customers can relax and chat, or browse the Internet ---- there’s free WiFi available.  It’s no surprise that the shop has become a favorite local gathering spot. Coffee is roasted on the premises by the owner, who is a master roaster, so the place smells wonderful.  The selection of coffee, all Free Trade and/or organic, include beans from Africa, Central and South America, and the South Pacific and Indonesia. Whatever the bean, all the coffee is roasted specifically to bring out the optimum flavor. Specialty drinks like espresso, mocha, latte, steamed milk and hot chocolate are also available.  A variety of roasted coffee beans can be purchased from the store.

Nags Head Pier offers some of the best fishing on the east coast. Its proximity to the Gulf Stream provides access to a great variety of inshore fish, and the Pier Shop furnishes all the equipment needed to catch them. The Shop’s experts can even offer a few tips, along with the bait, tackle and rod and reel rentals.Not only will the pier help you catch the fish, the Nags Head Pier Restaurant with cook them up - fried, grilled or blackened - and serve them to you with fries, cole slaw and hushpuppies. The restaurant is a great place to come early for breakfast and watch the sunrise and specializes in Carolina-style cooking, offering fresh seafood and other dishes for lunch and dinner, with entrees priced from $7.95 to $24.95.But you don’t have to fish to enjoy the pier. After a filling dinner, you can take the kids or that special someone for a lazy stroll down the pier for only $1.50 per person, with kids sightseeing at half price. Day and season passes for fishing are also available.The Pier Shop also sells souvenirs and Nags Head Pier caps and T-shirts that can be ordered online as well. The pier is at milepost 12, has ample parking and is open to fishin 24 hours a day throughout the spring, summer and fall. The Pier House is open from 6 a.m. to midnight.

It is impossible to match the coolness of dining on a fishing pier, and the Pier House Restaurant is one of the few that offers the experience.  What’s great is you can come right off the beach, or the pier, and enjoy a satisfying Outer Banks-style meal. Try to score a window table for the best view, but any place in the restaurant provides a unique experience. The food is classic Carolina, including big breakfasts of eggs or hotcakes. Lunch and dinner selections include burgers, sandwiches, hushpuppies, cole slaw and fresh North Carolina seafood.  And here’s a way to guarantee you’re eating fresh seafood: Catch a fish on the pier, and the restaurant will clean it, cook it for you however way you like it, and serve it up with fries, hushpuppies and slaw.  Dinners even offer an evening stroll on the pier.

Sam and Omie’s Restaurant is a great place to eat after a day at the beach. Or before you go to the beach. Or, for that matter, before or after a visit to Jennette’s Pier, which is right across the street, on the beach. As authentic Outer Banks as you can get, this small family-run restaurant at Milepost 16.5 off the Beach Road in Nags Head originally opened in 1937 to serve fishermen breakfast before they went fishing. With bead board walls, low wooden ceilings and gleaming wood plank floors, Sam and Omie’s still has the look and feel of the old Outer Banks cottages. Photographs of fishermen displaying their catch and some old Nags Head scenes line the walls. Carolina blue vinyl cushioning in the wooden booths adds to the beachy-y atmosphere, and the polished wood bar is a favorite spot for locals and visitors to socialize over a cold beer.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served most of the year, offering favorite Outer Banks seafood dishes, burgers, omelets, salads, sandwiches and barbeque.    Be ready to wait in the summer, but it’s worth it. There’s even a homey screened-in porch with wooden benches to sit on and enjoy the seabreezes while you wait.

This modest deli and convenience store at Milepost 10 off the U.S. 158 Bypass is not just any Citgo gas station stop. As the sign in the window boasts, it’s the “Best Lunch Deli on the Beach,” and many locals would agree. Their biscuits are renowned for their taste and texture, and the fried chicken is the way Southern fried chicken is supposed to be. Food is freshly made every morning and afternoon, and the selection offers basic homestyle favorites. Breakfast offerings include sausage, bacon, pork, ham and of course, eggs. Hurry in to grab a cheese biscuit, a specialty. Some mornings , if you’re lucky, you can get yourself a goo-ey warm cinnamon bun.

The Dunes Restaraunt is a favorite local restaurant that’s been in business since 1982 and focuses on local, southern cooking. It has embraced the local food movement, and always tries to use local seasonal produce, regionally sourced eggs (we use a lot!) and fresh Outer Banks seafood in its dishes.

With a mission to provide a meal made with fresh, natural and premium ingredients, the eatery offers a range of interesting and delicious gourmet salads, bistro sandwiches, grilled flatbreads and toasted wraps, all made with a flair for international flavors.