Roanoke Island
Dining in Manteo
Where to eat on Roanoke Island, and why the town is worth the drive over the bridge
A Town Worth Eating In
Manteo is having a moment. The town was named a North Carolina Main Street Community in 2022, and more than twenty businesses have opened or changed hands since, under a banner the town calls Meet Me in Manteo. Firetender is part of that wave: a stone-oven restaurant and bar in the renovated Hotel Manteo, a short walk from the shops and the waterfront. Roanoke Island is not a strip of highway restaurants. It is a small town where you can park once and walk the rest of the evening.
Downtown and the Waterfront
Downtown Manteo is small and built for walking. The boardwalk runs along Shallowbag Bay out to the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse, one of the most photographed spots on the island, and Budleigh Street behind it has picked up a bakery, a toy shop and a bottle shop in the last two years. Firetender is a short hop from all of it, which makes the whole evening a single stop instead of three.
Dinner at Firetender
Everything here starts with fire. Our pizzas go into a custom Marra Forni stone oven that runs hot enough to blister a crust in about ninety seconds, and the same heat goes into the double smash burgers, the house pasta and the skillets. Behind the bar is the Weeping Radish Taproom, pouring all four beers from North Carolina's first microbrewery. Dinner is served Tuesday through Sunday, 5 to 9 p.m., at 814 N Highway 64/264.
Beer From Down the Road
North Carolina's first microbrewery opened in Manteo in 1986, and the Weeping Radish Taproom is back in town at Firetender. Four beers pour here every night: the crisp OBX Kolsch, the golden Corolla Gold Helles, the citrus-forward Radish IPA and the dark, roasty Black Radish, all brewed to the Bavarian purity law of 1516. Order a flight and taste all four, or sit down with our team for a guided tasting.
Eating Around the Island
Plan dinner around whatever brought you across the bridge. Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, The Lost Colony at the Waterside Theatre, the Elizabethan Gardens, the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island and Roanoke Island Festival Park are all within a few minutes of the table. Most of them wind down in the late afternoon, which lines up neatly with a 5 p.m. seating. If you have tickets to an evening show, eat first.
