SPANKY'S GRILLE 

     THE DREAM:  Spanky's Grille started as a long time dream.  I got lucky, on May 16 (1999) my wife married me, anyways.  In 2001 we purchased a commerical lot, in 2002 Narrow Shores started construction and in 2003 (four months after our first daughter was born) we opened for business. 

 

      THE PROBLEM:   A restaurant kitchen is a hot and fast paced place to work.  I volunteered to work in the kitchen as I wanted my wife to work the register.  I still have nightmares of the first day; we had so many tickets I ran out of places to stick them.   

 

      THE ANSWER:  I admit it, I was ready to quit until my wife walked into the kitchen.  "I've got a lady who doesn't understand that cooked to order fries require seven minutes. Deal with it!"  I was happy to have an excuse to leave the kitchen, but I dreaded the moment I would have to return.  We quickly discovered the truth; my wife was a natural in the kitchen and I love talking to our customers.  That was the moment everthing clicked. By the end of our first week, we had  developed a crowd of regular

customers, 12 years later, most are still regulars.

 

     THE BIG 3:  My wife and I had three goals.  (1) All of our food would be cooked to order (2) all of our food would be served fast (3) all of our food would be affordable.  We knew that any restaurant that can combine these three features, creates something special called...VALUE!!!

 

     THE ORIGINAL MENU:   Our concept was simple, we wanted to be an old fashion hamburger/hot dog restaurant.  We served fresh Burgers, Hot Dogs, Footlongs, Corn Dogs, Chicken Tenders, French Fries, Chili/Cheese Fries, Onion Rings, BBQ, Fresh Salads and Fresh Brewed tea (sweet and unsweet).

 

     THE EXPANDED MENU:  After we opened, we had a lot of special requests.  We decided that the most frequent requests would be placed on our special board and any special that sold well would be added to the menu. Spanky's menu has greatly expanded and now includes Shimp, Reubens, Okra, Buffalo Chicken, Alligator, Catfish, Country Style Green Beans, Fried Pickles, Hamburger Steak, Sweet Potato Fries, mashed potatoes, Funnel Fries and more.

  

     ZING:  I admit that we couldn't leave well enough alone, we wanted some ZING on our menu so we added an extremely hot HABANERO VOODOO BURGER  and we added a surprisingly popular 2 LB. MAD VIKING BURGER.  At this point, 4,000+ Vikings have been finished. 

            

     AWARDS:  Spankys has won a lot of awards, such as being named as one of the Top 40 Hot Dog Stands Across America (2013), The Trip Advisor Award of Excellence (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019), top 10 North Carolina Burger restaurants by  America Top 10 (6 years in a row) and the same honor was awarded by The Urban Spoon (5 years in a row).  

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