Nick’s Seafood Restaurant

Nick’s Seafood Restaurant sits on State Highway 20 West in Freeport, right where Basin Bayou opens into Choctawhatchee Bay. The dining room and open-air seating look straight across the water, and regulars call the place “Nicks in the Sticks” because of its out-of-the-way location well off the 30A tourist strip. Locals drive in from Niceville, DeFuniak Springs, and towns further inland to fill the parking lot on weekend evenings, drawn by seafood pulled from waters within sight of the restaurant.

The Nick family has worked this stretch of bayou for four generations. What started in the early 1900s as a rough fish camp run by Trey Nick’s grandparents sold bait, beer, and fishing boat rentals for a dollar a day. Frank Nick took the business over in 1956 with his wife Hattie, and in 1963 he built the restaurant building that still stands today, the same year the family-run story most visitors know begins. Ownership passed to Frank Jr. and Bonnie in 1979, then to third-generation owners Trey and Jennifer Nick in 1998, who still run the kitchen and dining room.

Trey Nick is a working waterman as much as a restaurateur. He runs three commercial inshore fishing boats and, by his own account, harvests more blue crab from Choctawhatchee Bay than anyone else on the water, working the traps alongside his son. Between the crab operation and daily runs for mullet, speckled trout, shrimp, and flounder, the restaurant fills its case with Gulf seafood caught within a few miles of the dining room rather than trucked-in, frozen product.

The kitchen fries in a batter the family keeps to itself, applied to shrimp, scallops, oysters, grouper, and calamari, and grills mullet and tilefish for guests who want it simpler. Raw oysters come from state-leased beds and are served ice cold on the half shell. Seafood gumbo, crab legs, and mixed platters round out the main list, and the sides carry their own weight: fried okra, hush puppies, coleslaw, cheddar grits, onion rings, and baked potatoes.

The room itself is unpolished on purpose. Guests seat themselves at picnic tables, bar stools, or table seating, and the staff treats first-timers and forty-year regulars the same way. Windows and the deck face west across the bay, so a table near sunset hour rewards patient diners with a long orange glow over the water on clear evenings, and reviewers consistently describe the vantage point as a 180-degree, unobstructed sweep of Basin Bayou. Some visitors call the building itself rough around the edges; regulars tend to read that same worn quality as part of the appeal, an old-Florida fish house that has not been remodeled into something generic. The restaurant has also hosted live music and an annual bonfire event on the property, giving the bayfront gathering spot a social role that goes beyond just serving dinner.

Nick’s Seafood does not run a public website, so calling ahead or checking its Facebook page is the most reliable way to confirm hours before a visit; a domain once tied to the restaurant’s name no longer belongs to the business and should not be trusted for current information. The restaurant is open Wednesday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., and closed Monday and Tuesday. Because the dining room is small and the bay view popular, arriving before the dinner rush on weekends helps avoid a wait, and reaching the restaurant directly at (850) 835-2222 is the surest way to check for any schedule changes around holidays. Visitors coming from the 30A beaches should plan for a drive inland along Highway 20, since the restaurant sits well north of the main tourist corridor, closer to Freeport’s working waterfront than to any beach access point.