The Best Lunch Spots on Tybee Island

Lunch is the meal Tybee visitors get wrong. Breakfast is easy because the diners are right there, and dinner gets planned because everyone wants to sit somewhere good at sunset. Lunch happens at 1:30 on a beach day, when you are sandy and hungry and have not decided anything. This list exists so that decision is already made.

Six places, all on the island, all serving lunch. They are not ranked in a strict order. They are grouped roughly by the kind of lunch you are after, because the best lunch for a family leaving the beach is not the best lunch for two people who have a free afternoon and want to sit for an hour.

Hours change through the year, so every entry below links to a source you can check for the day you are going.

The full midday options

These four are lunch places in the plain sense: you can show up in the middle of the day and sit down.

1. The Crab Shack

The Crab Shack is at 40 Estill Hammock Road, and it serves lunch and dinner. We gave it a post of its own, so we will not repeat it here. Read our Crab Shack guide for the full picture, or see its Explore Georgia listing for the current details.

The reason it belongs on a lunch list is simple. If your idea of Tybee is a seafood meal, lunch is the more relaxed way to do it. You are not planning around a dinner reservation and you still have the afternoon afterward.

2. North Beach Bar & Grill

At 33 Meddin Drive on North Beach, by the lighthouse, North Beach Bar & Grill serves lunch and dinner with a Caribbean and Southern coastal menu. It is the one on this list that pairs with a plan. Being by the lighthouse means lunch fits naturally into a day spent up that end of the island rather than being a detour from it.

Check Visit Tybee's listing before you go.

3. Fannie's on the Beach

Fannie's sits at 1613 Strand Avenue in South Beach, and it serves lunch or dinner seven days a week. The menu covers sandwiches, pizza, salads and seafood, which makes it the easy answer when a group cannot agree. One person wants a salad, another wants a sandwich, a third will only eat pizza, and everyone gets what they asked for.

It is the right choice if your day is based in South Beach. See Visit Tybee's page for current information.

4. Huc-A-Poos Bites & Booze

Huc-A-Poos is at 1213 US-80, on the main road that brings you onto the island, which makes it the one lunch stop you might pass on the way in rather than walk to from the beach. It is a pizza place first. If you arrive on a Friday and want to eat before you check in, or you are driving back off the island and want something hot and uncomplicated, it fits.

There is a Fodor's write-up if you want an outside opinion.

Breakfast that runs into lunch

The next two are different. They are morning restaurants that happen to serve lunch, and they close in the early afternoon. Go for a late breakfast or an early lunch and you will be fine. Show up at 3 PM and you will be disappointed.

5. The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club is at 1500 Butler Avenue, on the same street as the inn. It is a Tybee institution for breakfast, brunch and lunch, and the thing to know is that it closes early. Treat it as a late-morning meal. For the venue's details, use The Infatuation's review or look it up through Visit Tybee.

6. Sunrise Restaurant

Sunrise is at 1511 Butler Avenue, ten street numbers from Admiral's Inn at 1501 Butler, and it is about a two-minute walk from our front door. It serves breakfast and lunch and, like The Breakfast Club, it finishes its day in the early afternoon, so order before it closes. We covered it in full in our Sunrise Restaurant guide, and Visit Tybee has its listing.

For anyone staying here, Sunrise is the lunch you can do without thinking about it.

How to pick

Start with where you will be. The island is small, but North Beach, South Beach and Butler Avenue are different parts of the day, and the easiest lunch is the one on your side of it.

If you are up at the lighthouse, eat at North Beach Bar & Grill. If you are in South Beach by the pier area, Fannie's is the obvious one. If you are working out of Butler Avenue, you have Sunrise and The Breakfast Club a few doors apart.

Then think about timing. The first four are for the middle of the day. The last two are for before it. A good pattern for a beach morning is to walk to Butler Avenue for a late breakfast or early lunch, go to the water, and then eat a second, lighter meal from one of the four when you come off the sand. That is not a plan for everyone, but if you are the kind of person who likes eating twice before dinner, Tybee suits you.

Then think about who is at the table. A group with different tastes does well at Fannie's. A couple who wants seafood and a slower afternoon should go to The Crab Shack. People who want to eat and get back to the beach are best served by pizza.

Making lunch work with a beach day

The mistake is treating lunch as an interruption. If you leave the sand hungry, with no idea where you are going, you will end up at whichever place is nearest and settle for it. Pick the restaurant the night before and let it set the shape of the day.

A few habits help. Decide which end of the island you are spending the day on, and choose from that end. Look up the current hours for your pick on its own site or listing before you leave, because that takes a minute and saves a wasted trip. If you are traveling with a group, send everyone the name and address so nobody is hunting for it in the car. And if the plan falls apart, the front desk is staffed around the clock, so ask us. We will tell you where we would go.

For the two early-closing places, flip the logic. Make the meal the first thing you do, and let the beach follow it.

A word about the afternoon

Lunch on Tybee is a good moment to be near a pool, and you can use it. Our saltwater pool is heated in the cooler months, which makes it the only heated pool in our group of Tybee inns. A late lunch followed by a swim and a sit by the pergola is a better afternoon than a second hour in a restaurant. See what else is on the property on our amenities page.

If you are building a longer trip around the food, our guide to Tybee Island restaurants goes wider than lunch, and our dining page lists the places we send guests by meal. If you want seafood at dinner as well, the best seafood restaurants near Tybee Island is the next read.

How we chose

We did not rank them by star rating. The grouping above is how we would answer if you stopped us at the front desk and asked where to eat.

Hours, menus and seasonal schedules change. Each place's own site or listing is the right source for the day you go.

Planning your stay

If lunch is the thing deciding your trip, you are in good company. Our rooms are on Butler Avenue, parking is free for one car per room, and the restaurants above are an easy part of the island to build around. Browse the rooms or check the current special offers.