Ask anyone who grew up spending summers on Topsail Island where to go in Surf City after dark, and the answer points one direction: toward the ocean. The pier. The boardwalk. A plate of oysters at Buddy's Crab House and Oyster Bar, a fixture of the beach-side dining scene. That version of Surf City hasn't gone anywhere.
But if you've noticed the town's newest additions all seem to be pointed the other way, you're not imagining it. The restaurant everyone's talking about, the free concerts drawing a crowd on Friday nights, the farmers market, even the new sidewalk under construction, are all clustered on the sound side of town, facing the marsh and the bridge instead of the surf. This year, the interesting stuff is happening behind you if you're standing on the beach.
A Restaurant Built to Face the Bridge, Not the Break
Marina Joe's opened this year at 209 N. New River Drive, right on the Intracoastal Waterway, on a lot adjacent to the Topsail Island Trading Company gift shop, just over the bridge onto the island. That's a telling location. It's not deep in the beach district. It's positioned at the gateway, on the water that carries boat traffic rather than wave traffic.
Owner Joe Lyons built the two-story restaurant with his wife Katie Lyons and a small group of investors, Scott and Clay Darrohn along with Wilmington restaurateur Justin Smith, whose background running restaurants in Wilmington shaped how the space came together. The building seats around 170 people, with 30 of those seats on outdoor decks angled specifically toward the water and the bridge beyond it. Getting there took two years, partly because the lot was originally zoned residential and had to go through rezoning before construction could start. Groundbreaking happened in September 2025.
What makes the restaurant genuinely different from anything else on the island is the dock. Scott Darrohn put it plainly: "You're going to be able to pull your boats up. It's the only one that I'm aware of on Topsail Island." No ocean-facing restaurant in town can offer that, because the ocean side doesn't have the calm, navigable water for it. Lyons himself compared the setting to one of Wilmington's most recognizable riverfront spots.
"It's like the Bluewater of Surf City."
Darrohn's read on why now is worth sitting with too: "We've seen the growth in this area, especially from Wilmington up. Surf City's blowing up." That's not a marketing line. It's the same growth pattern that shows up in the town's own infrastructure planning, which we'll get to.
The Concert Series Has One Encore Left
The Town of Surf City's Parks, Recreation and Tourism department runs a free concert series called Meet Me at the Sound, and it happens exactly where the name says: at Soundside Park, on the water side of town, not the beach side. This year there were three dates: June 26, July 24, and August 28. The first two are already behind us. The last one, on August 28, is still ahead, about two and a half weeks out from today.
Soundside Park has also hosted the Shop the Sound Craft & Farmers Market, described by the town as a gathering of local farmers, artisans, and small businesses set against the park's water views. The most recent one landed on July 31. Between the concert series and the market, Soundside Park has become the town's default answer to "where's everyone going this weekend," and it's not the beach.
Here's the contrast laid out plainly:
| Facing the Ocean | Facing the Sound |
|---|---|
| Ocean Fest (May 1-3, beach and Soundside Park combined) | Marina Joe's (opened this year, ICW-front) |
| Buddy's Crab House and Oyster Bar | Meet Me at the Sound concerts (Soundside Park) |
| Surf City Pier and boardwalk foot traffic | Shop the Sound Farmers Market (Soundside Park) |
Ocean Fest is the one event that still pulls everyone toward the beach, and it did in early May with its surf contest and beach 5K. But that was months ago. Everything added to the calendar since then has been on the water that faces inland.
A Path That Explains Why
The town is also in the middle of building a piece of infrastructure that makes this shift easier to understand. Surf City is currently accepting sealed bids for construction of the JH Batts Road Multi-Use Path, Segment 5, a stretch that connects the intersection of NC 50 and JH Batts Road to Community Center Drive. The town negotiated a cost-share arrangement with the developer of the Waterside Community to help fund it, which tells you this isn't a stand-alone sidewalk project. It's part of a deal tied directly to new residential growth on that side of town.
Segment 5 is one piece of a larger network the town has mapped out. Segment 1 runs along NC Highway 210. Segment 2 follows Watts Landing Road. Segment 3 covers Caretta Drive. Segment 7 is planned for North Shore Drive. Taken together, the town is quietly building a walkable and bikeable connection between its newer residential neighborhoods and the mainland side of town, the same side where Marina Joe's, the concert series, and the farmers market all sit. Once Segment 5 is finished, residents of the Waterside community will have a paved route to Community Center Drive without needing a car, one more link in a mainland path network the town has been assembling piece by piece.
That's the mechanism behind the pattern. The restaurant, the concerts, and the market aren't isolated choices by three different groups who happened to like the same view. They're landing in the one part of town the municipal government is actively investing in making easier to reach on foot.
The Zuba Take
None of this replaces a night on the beach side of the island. Buddy's isn't going anywhere. Ocean Fest will be back next year with its surf contest and its beach yoga. But if you've been treating the mainland side of Surf City as the part you drive through to get to the sand, this is the year that stops making sense. The best new dinner reservation in town faces the marsh. The last free concert of the summer is at a park with no ocean view at all. And the town is paving the way, literally, for that side of Surf City to matter as much as the beach does.
If you already call Surf City home, the practical takeaway is simple: put August 28 on the calendar for the last Meet Me at the Sound show, and give Marina Joe's a try if you haven't yet, ideally by boat if you have one.
If you're the kind of person who reads a post like this and starts wondering what a home near that stretch of the Intracoastal might be worth, or whether now's the right window to buy or sell on this side of town, that's a different conversation, and one Zuba Real Estate has been having with Topsail Island residents for years. Reach out any time to schedule a free consultation with Joe.
