Sandbar & Grille, inc.

Sandbar & Grille sits right on NC-12 in Buxton, the Hatteras Island village that's home to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It's set up as a straightforward bar and restaurant — the kind of stop where you can order a full meal or just pull up to the bar for a drink, which tracks with its listing as a brewery-and-bar spot with a $$ price range. Given the location, it's a natural stop before or after a day on the beach, a fishing trip, or a walk around the lighthouse grounds (the tower itself is closed for climbing due to a cast-iron bracket issue found during restoration, so plan on viewing it from the base rather than going up).

The restaurant is closed on Sundays, based on its posted schedule, so plan around that if you're passing through on the back half of a Hatteras Island weekend. Like most stops along NC-12 south of the Marc Basnight Bridge, getting here means driving the length of the seashore road, so it's worth checking current road conditions during storm season before making the trip — NC-12 closures are a real, recurring possibility on this stretch, especially between August and October.