Enjoy Waterfront Dining at our Outer Banks Seafood Restaurant

At Basnight's Lone Cedar Café, we specialize in fresh and local Outer Banks seafood. If you’re craving the freshest fish, clams, crab, shrimp and oysters from local North Carolina waters, you’ll find them at the Lone Cedar Café.

For generations, Outer Banks families made their livings — and their daily meals — from the bounty of local waters, caught fresh every day. Our family, the Basnights, were part of that history, and we continue the tradition today by serving only the freshest Outer Banks seafood, caught in local waters and brought to our docks daily by local fishermen, then cleaned and prepared right here at the Lone Cedar Café. Our vegetables are “just picked” from North Carolina farms, we serve only all-natural beef and poultry and even our herbs and greens are grown in our own chemical-free garden on-site. Come enjoy delicious food, gorgeous sunsets and panoramic water views, the antics of our resident ospreys and our warm Southern hospitality.

The best view, food and drinks on the Outer Banks.
Join us at the Osprey Lounge at Basnight’s Lone Cedar Café where you can enjoy a birds-eye view of our osprey nest while sipping an exquisite wine, a beer or a specialty drink from our Osprey Lounge menu. The Osprey Lounge features 55 kinds of beer as well as eight on tap.

Entertainment
As if watching the jet skis and boats, the osprey flying to the nest with fish and the beautiful marshes at dusk is not enough entertainment, the Osprey Lounge also offers an array of live music. Entertainment varies, so please call for the latest information or check out outerbanksthisweek.com. Three big screen televisions always feature the best in sporting events. Cheer your team to victory while enjoying the nightly bar menu and the company of happy friends – both brand new and tried and true.

What Sets Basnight’s Lone Cedar Café Apart
At Basnight’s Lone Cedar Café, a family owned and operated restaurant, we’re committed to serving the freshest Outer Banks seafood caught only in North Carolina waters. At Lone Cedar, you won’t find any frozen, imported or farm-raised seafood of any kind. Nor will you find any frozen meats or canned vegetables stored in chemical preservatives or any mass-produced desserts.

Since it first opened in 1996, Basnight’s has been the restaurant where all the movers and shakers in the state would eat when they visted the barrier islands. Owned by Outer Banks native and former state Sen. Marc Basnight and his family, the restaurant, located on the Nags Head-Manteo causeway, is busy nearly all year long. But its lineage is not the reason it’s become so popular. Lone Cedar can boast that it serves only fresh local seafood caught by local fishermen, as well as the freshest North Carolina produce available.

Fresh caught clams, shrimp, oysters, crabs and finfish are selected daily and cleaned on premises in the fish-cleaning building adjacent to the restaurant. In season, an onsite crab shedder provides the freshest possible soft-shell crabs. Meat includes USDA Prime Harris Ranch All-Natural Black Angus Beef raised on all-natural vegetarian feed that is hormone- and antibiotic-free, as well as all natural Ashley Farms poultry and pork products from North Carolina farms. 

To top it off, chefs cook with fresh herbs picked from the restaurant’s own herb garden; desserts are made from scratch by an in-house pastry chef; deep-fried foods are prepared with natural, no trans-fat soybean oil; and a 2,000-bottle wine cellar is on expansive premises. Not to mention the restaurant’s panoramic view of the Roanoke Sound and its glorious sunsets; a full-service bar that includes 55 beers with five on tap; an attractive gift shop; authentic Outer Banks décor and memorabilia; and decks where diners can spy on ospreys Lucy and Ricky building the family nest and raising their chicks. Dancing and live music are available on some nights throughout the year in The Osprey Lounge. 

Here’s what you will find at the Lone Cedar…
• The best fresh-caught fish, clams, crab, shrimp and oysters—hand-selected by our fish monger and cleaned on premise in our fish-cleaning building. We even shed our own soft crabs in season.

• Quality meat products including USDA Prime Angus Beef raised on all-natural vegetarian feed that is free of hormones and antibiotics, and all-natural poultry and pork products from North Carolina farms.

• “Just-picked” vegetables from North Carolina farmers prepared simply and seasoned with fresh herbs picked from our own herb garden.

• Your favorite deep-fried selections prepared using an all-natural 100% soybean oil that is carb free with no cholesterol or trans fats.

• Delicious down home, favorite desserts handmade from scratch daily by our pastry chef.

• A 2,000-bottle traditional 55 degrees wine cellar.

• The Osprey Lounge, a favorite gathering spot for locals and visitors with live music regularly.

• A panoramic view of the Roanoke Sound from every seat—you can watch Lucy and Ricky, our resident osprey family, build their nest and raise their young, check the crabs in our shedders and enjoy gorgeous sunsets.

• An all-green restaurant to help preserve our environment.

• A gift shop offering treasures to take home as reminders of your wonderful vacation on the Outer Banks.
• Full-service Outer Banks catering.

• A heart-felt welcome from everyone at Lone Cedar that makes you feel like family.

The Top Outer Banks Catering

We’re especially proud that Lone Cedar has earned a reputation as one of the top in Outer Banks catering. We are honored to be a part of so many meaningful gatherings – Outer Banks weddings and rehearsal dinners, birthdays, bridal lunches, reunions, business meetings, parties and more. We have an entire staff dedicated to our Outer Banks catering events. Our chefs both trained at the Culinary Institute of America, and they bring their excellence and passion for food to your Outer Banks catering event. We have two catering coordinators to make sure your events goes exactly as planned, and our staff is experienced and seasoned, ready to bring the professionalism that refines your event.

Outer Banks catering, as you might know, is a competitive business, so the fact that we are the recommended resource by so many Outer Banks wedding planners, event coordinators and locals means a lot to us. Click here for details about Lone Cedar Catering.

ORDER ONLINE

7623 S. Virginia Dare Trail
Nags Head, NC 27959
(252) 441-5405

Nags Head
252-441-5405
Hours
*Off-season hours may vary*
Call 252-441-5405 for current hours.
  • Tuesday04:30PM-08:30PM
  • Wednesday04:30PM-08:30PM
  • Thursday04:30PM-08:30PM
  • Friday04:30PM-09:00PM
  • Saturday04:30PM-09:00PM
  • Sunday04:30PM-08:30PM
Categories
Coastal Life Restaurants Weddings
The Cotton Gin

The Cotton Gin

For those traveling to the Outer Banks, The Cotton Gin is a beloved landmark with its large windmill and picturesque gardens. The Cotton Gin has stood in the same location since 1929, starting as a working cotton gin and growing to a gift store with 4 locations. Visitors are treated to a unique shopping experience in our main store in Jarvisburg, as well as our beach stores in Corolla, Duck, and Nags Head. Explore room after room filled with décor for your home and coastal fashions for both men and women. Discover the brands you really want, like, Vera Bradley, Vineyard Vines, La Mer Luex, Simply Southern, Lindsay Phillips, Scout, Pandora, Kameleon, Brighton, Spartina, Tommy Bahama, Southern Tide and Salt Life and Old Guys Rule - all under one roof!

 

Don’t forget the gourmet market, or shop our beautiful linens for your bedroom and bath. We also feature coastal books and fine art, or just a whimsical fun gift to bring home to family and friends. Stop by soon and don’t forget to try our estate grown wines in our stores or visit our vineyard and winery, Sanctuary Vineyards, located adjacent to the original Cotton Gin in Jarvisburg.

 

Most know The Cotton Gin as a must-stop shop for fine gifts, beachwear, souvenirs and so much more, but this retailer has a long-standing history within the Outer Banks. A local landmark that holds almost a century of memories, The Cotton Gin started from humble beginnings and continues to adapt to the times and tourists. Tommy Wright’s family has been in the Outer Banks for nearly 200 years. His great-great grandfather, Jacob Francis Wright, shipwrecked in Duck back in the early 1800s. Calling these barrier islands his new home, Wright and his family acclimated to their new environment.

 

Adaptation is a common theme for the Wright family. Tommy and his wife Candace, who continue to steer The Cotton Gin, have seen not only their business change with the times, but the Outer Banks as a vacation destination as well. A farm market in Jarvisburg eventually transformed and flourished into several retail locations dotting the Outer Banks.

 

“As the area changed and tourism took off in the 1960s, the family saw people coming for vacations, so they began to grow vegetables and things developed from there,” says Tommy Wright. The Wright family expanded upon the farm market and began to remodel a working cotton gin, later transforming the gin into The Cotton Gin general store in the late 1960s. While the additions to the farm store drew visitors, it was their encounters with the Wright family that kept people coming back year after year, which is something that remains true today.

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