Nags Head Beach Information

There’s an art to doing a home-style chicken dinner right in the South. You need a chicken fried to golden, crispy perfection obviously. Then you need the appropriate fixings, like mac and cheese and coleslaw. Finally, you need that familial setting of passing the plates, helping yourself and fighting for the very last piece. And we have this art down at The Cookshak Fried Chicken – in fact, it’s our specialty. Choose a whole or half bird and a side dish (or three!), and you have a deliciously easy meal in the making. We also offer lunch deals where you can get two or three-piece meals, sides and a drink. We keep feeding yourself or the whole crew quick and convenient. At our Duck location, you can order carry-out from our window to take home or enjoy at the neighboring Pizzazz Pizza. For a sit-down meal, check out our Nags Head eatery shared with Pizzazz Pizza. Don’t want to venture out? Not a problem. We offer free delivery.

Looking to fly a kite on the beach or atop the spectacular dunes of Jockey’s Ridge State Park? Kitty Hawk Kites offers the largest selection of kites, wind art, flags, games, and toys on the Outer Banks, with experts on staff to get you flying … or playing … in no time! Always dreamed of being a mermaid? Kitty Hawk Kites carries Fin Fun Mermaid Tails and also offers Mermaid Swim Lessons too! Kitty Hawk Kites also produces more than 20 events annually, including several kite festivals on the Outer Banks.

No trip to the Outer Banks is complete without cruising through Brew Thru, the Outer Banks’ original drive thru convenience store. Whether you’re looking for a refreshing cold beverage of Coke, Pepsi and other soft drinks on the go, stocking up your cooler with refreshments to enjoy at the beach or piling up on beer and wine for a party, Brew Thru is a fun and unique experience all vacationers need to see for themselves.

Brew Thru is Your One-Stop Shop at the Beach

The year was 1977, and Dana and Becky Lawrentz were chatting with friends over brews in their hometown of Akron, Ohio. They got to talking about a gas station convenience store in the area that had built a makeshift drive-through. Everyone agreed it would be pretty great if you could actually drive through a convenience store and pick up everything you needed without getting out of the car. But what would you call a place like that?

Well, you’d call it a Brew Thru.

It was an idea they couldn’t shake, so the Lawrentzes moved to the Outer Banks and built the first Brew Thru with the help of a partner. The idea was that people could come buy everything they would need for their trip to the beach—beer, wine, soft drinks, snacks, ice—without getting out of the car. That same year, a t-shirt salesman visiting the store and talked them into adding t-shirts to their product line—and 44 years later there are now more than five million Brew Thru t-shirts out in the wild.

The Lawrentzes’ daughter Brandy and her husband Philip Foreman purchased the business from them in 2002, and they now operate five locations across the Outer Banks.“We love being the one-stop shop for folks on the way to their beach house,” Foreman says. “Our car tenders are the friendliest people at the beach. We’re here to greet you, get you everything you need for your trip, load it up in the trunk for you, and have you leaving with a smile on your face.”

The store is quite expansive, featuring more than 100 brands of beer, dozens of wines and even a vast selection of cigars—not to mention all the snacks, t-shirts and other gear. To make ordering a little easier, customers in line get a menu—fondly known as the Summer-y—that outlines everything available at the store. These Summer-ies are also available in many of the beach rentals, which allows vacationers to decide what they want before driving through.

For customers who would like to get out and stretch their legs, there’s the Brew Thru Shop in Kill Devil Hills, where you can find their world famous t-shirts and other gifts. New t-shirt designs are created each year, making a yearly Brew Thru t-shirt a favorite of locals and annual visitors to the Outer Banks.

The Foremans both grew up in the Outer Banks, and they love that Brandy’s parents’ vision for a friendly and convenient place for people to grab their brews and other beach stay essentials is continuing to flourish.

“Our family has been welcoming people to the Outer Banks since 1977,” Foreman says. “We love this beautiful place, and we want everybody to get to enjoy it.”

Enjoy Waterfront Dining at Basnight's Lone Cedar Café where 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. 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.