Myrtle Beach Eats That Won't Break the Bank

Myrtle Beach Eats That Won’t Break the Bank

The number that actually decides your food budget here isn’t the menu, it’s the tax: a meal inside Myrtle Beach city limits carries roughly an 11.5% combined state, local, and hospitality tax (about 10.5% in unincorporated Horry County), so build it into what you’re willing to spend before the check arrives. Beyond that, the eating here is honest and dish-based rather than chef-driven, built around seafood, and there’s exactly one place on the whole Strand where naming specific restaurants is safe: Murrells Inlet.

Murrells Inlet’s MarshWalk is the only place to name names

Murrells Inlet calls itself the Seafood Capital of South Carolina, and the MarshWalk, a half-mile boardwalk over the marsh, is where that claim gets tested. Six restaurants line it and are worth knowing by name:

  • Dead Dog Saloon - waterfront seafood with a lively bar scene
  • Drunken Jack’s - a long-running MarshWalk staple
  • Wahoo’s - casual seafood right on the boardwalk
  • Bovine’s - steak alongside the seafood, for anyone not in a fish mood
  • The Wicked Tuna - fresh catch with marsh views
  • The Claw House - built around the crab and shellfish side of the menu

None of these need a reservation to walk up to, and the boardwalk itself is free even if you just want to watch the shrimp boats come in before picking a spot.

Calabash-style seafood is everywhere, but it’s not actually South Carolinian

Lightly battered and flash-fried, Calabash-style seafood anchors most of the Strand’s all-you-can-eat buffets and is generally the best value-per-dollar way to eat well here. The name comes from Calabash, North Carolina, just over the state line, not from anywhere in South Carolina, which is worth knowing before you go looking for the “original” spot locally.

The dish glossary: what to order almost anywhere

A handful of dishes show up on seafood menus across the Strand regardless of which restaurant you pick. She-crab soup, named for the female crabs’ roe that gives it its color, is a Lowcountry classic rooted in Charleston, and it’s a safe, satisfying order almost anywhere that serves seafood. Shrimp and grits is the other menu constant. Frogmore stew (a one-pot boil of shrimp, sausage, corn, and potatoes) and other Gullah-Geechee Lowcountry dishes round out the region’s real culinary identity, worth seeking out over a generic tourist menu.

BBQ is here, but it’s not the point

Barbecue shows up on menus around town, but Myrtle Beach doesn’t have a signature smokehouse tradition the way parts of the Carolinas inland do. Don’t plan a meal around finding “the” Myrtle Beach BBQ spot; the seafood is where the local identity actually lives.

Budgeting the meal tax

Whatever you order, tack roughly 11.5% onto the bill if you’re eating inside Myrtle Beach city limits, or about 10.5% in unincorporated Horry County just outside it. On a family dinner that adds up fast over a week-long trip, so it’s worth factoring into a daily food budget rather than discovering it on the final bill.

Read more: the hidden gems guide covers a few quieter spots worth a detour, and the main Myrtle Beach guide has the full budget breakdown for a first trip.