How close can dinner get to the Atlantic before the waves start asking for a table?
The boardwalk keeps moving, the surf keeps crashing, and your seat gets the kind of view most restaurants would charge extra to frame.
This Virginia Beach restaurant has held its Oceanfront spot since 1977. Nearly five decades later, it still keeps things casual without asking the location to carry the entire experience.
The menu gives mixed groups plenty of room to change direction. Seafood may lead the conversation, but nobody has to negotiate dinner like a peace agreement.
The beach stays close enough to hear between bites, which makes lingering remarkably easy. One more look at the water can stretch dinner longer than planned.
Keep the sand outside and let the Atlantic handle the table decoration.
A Seafood Shack Grew Into An Oceanfront Fixture
Chix began in 1977, when Laverne Burlage opened a modest seafood restaurant overlooking the Atlantic.
The family already had deep roots on this block. An earlier restaurant called Chix operated nearby in the 1940s, followed by the Sun-N-Fun Bathhouse Grill on the site during the 1950s.
That history gives the current restaurant more than a catchy beach name. It connects the dining room to several generations of Oceanfront life, from old bathhouse days to the modern boardwalk crowds passing outside today.
Mike and Mariah Standing purchased Chix in 2015. They also own Waterman’s Surfside Grille, another longtime Virginia Beach restaurant, and kept the original identity while updating the food and overall experience.
The result does not read like a themed tribute to the past. It works as a busy present-day restaurant that happens to carry decades of local history in its walls.
A beachfront business can disappear as quickly as a footprint near the tide. Chix has managed to keep its place while the shoreline around it changed.
The Atlantic Sits Just Beyond The Patio
The large outdoor cafe places diners beside the Virginia Beach Boardwalk, with the beach and Atlantic stretching beyond it. Bikes roll past, waves break in the distance, and the usual restaurant soundtrack gets an upgrade from the ocean.
Covered seating provides shade when the sun becomes too ambitious. Indoor tables offer the same easy access to lunch and dinner when heat, wind, or sudden coastal weather decides to rewrite the plan.
Dogs are welcome on the outdoor south patio Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Busy evenings and weekends remain dog-free, while trained service animals are always permitted.
The boardwalk entrance makes the restaurant convenient after time on the sand, and the street side gives drivers another route inside. Free parking removes one common Oceanfront headache before the menu even opens.
The view is not a decorative glimpse between buildings. It is the full beach scene, close enough to make anyone facing away from the water question the seating arrangement.
Timing can change the entire experience. Midday brings bright water and constant boardwalk movement, while an evening table softens the scene as the sky begins changing color. Either way, the patio gives you more than a meal break.
It gives the beach day a second act without making you leave the shoreline behind.
Seafood Platters Refuse To Make You Choose
One seafood craving rarely arrives alone, and the platter section understands the problem.
The Atlantic Feast combines jumbo shrimp, a jumbo lump crab cake, fried fresh fish, and hush puppies. Larger seafood combinations add more variety, giving the table a route through several coastal favorites without ordering half the menu separately.
Steamed shrimp, snow crab legs, clams, and raw-bar selections cover the shellfish side. Fried seafood brings a different kind of satisfaction, especially after a beach day has turned a light appetite into a much louder demand.
The crab cake deserves room on the fork rather than getting buried beneath too many extras. Fresh fish provides a simpler direction, while shrimp appears across enough dishes to become one of the menu’s recurring characters.
Shareable plates sound practical until the first person discovers a favorite piece and begins guarding it with suspicious intensity. Order enough for the table, then establish the shrimp rules before hunger damages the friendship.
Hush puppies deserve their own warning. They arrive looking like an innocent side, then begin disappearing while everyone claims they only took one. Keep the basket within reach if you value accuracy.
Fresh Fish Keeps The Menu Close To The Coast
A beachfront restaurant needs more than a basket of fried shrimp to support its address.
Fresh fish appears among the daily offerings, joined by grilled and blackened seafood preparations, tacos, and larger entrees. The menu changes enough to give repeat visits a different direction without abandoning the coastal focus that brought most diners inside.
Blackened tuna tacos pair fish with house-made cilantro-lime slaw and pineapple salsa. That combination brings heat, crunch, citrus, and sweetness into one handheld order, which is a lot of activity for a tortilla to manage.
Guests looking for a full dinner can move toward fish entrees or seafood combinations. A lighter lunch can stay with tacos, salads, or raw-bar choices while the ocean view supplies the drama.
The smartest order depends on the day. Hot weather may call for something bright and quick. A windy evening can make a warm seafood plate suddenly look like excellent planning.
Either way, the coast remains part of the meal rather than a theme added after the menu was written.
That balance keeps the seafood from becoming repetitive. One visit can lean crisp and fried, another can stay grilled or blackened, and a later trip can focus on tacos or raw-bar choices.
The menu gives the ocean several ways to reach the table without making every plate look like the same idea in a different basket.
Burgers, Steaks, And Salads Widen The Table
Someone in every group will look at an ocean and order beef. Chix is prepared for that person.
The menu stretches beyond seafood with burgers, sandwiches, salads, steaks, and other grill favorites. Ribeye and New York strip give dinner a heavier route, while burgers keep the mood casual enough for anyone arriving straight from the boardwalk.
That range matters at a family restaurant. One diner can order crab or shrimp, another can choose steak, and a younger guest can stay safely inside the children’s menu without triggering a table-wide debate.
Salads offer another option when the afternoon heat has made a large fried platter sound more ambitious than necessary. Add fish or another protein, and the lighter choice still carries enough substance to count as dinner.
A broad menu can become chaotic when a kitchen tries to chase every trend. Here, the non-seafood choices stay within familiar beachfront territory and support the main attraction instead of competing with it.
Nobody has to pretend to enjoy shellfish just because the Atlantic is outside. The view remains available to burger loyalists too.
That flexibility also helps when appetites change during a long beach day. A light salad can make sense at noon, while a steak may become much more convincing after several hours in the surf.
Chix leaves room for both decisions without making either diner feel like they ordered from the wrong restaurant.
Late Hours Give Beach Days A Longer Ending
The beach does not operate on a dinner reservation, and neither does every appetite.
Chix serves from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Tuesday, then stays open until 2 a.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Those hours make the restaurant useful long after many standard dining rooms have finished wiping down the tables.
A separate late-night menu keeps food moving during the final stretch. That matters after concerts, evening walks, long beach days, or the moment someone realizes lunch happened nine hours ago.
The atmosphere naturally changes as daylight leaves the boardwalk. Families dominate earlier meals, then the room picks up a livelier nighttime rhythm as the oceanfront stays active.
Late service does not mean the main dining experience only belongs to night owls. Lunch can be relaxed, dinner can catch the sunset, and the final hours can rescue anyone whose schedule ignored normal meal times.
Few things improve a late-night decision faster than discovering the kitchen is still open.
One Beachfront Meal Can Start A New Tradition
A restaurant lasting since 1977 has watched generations arrive with sandy shoes, sunburned shoulders, hungry children, and ambitious seafood plans.
Chix keeps those visits easy. The children’s menu helps families, reservations are available, and the casual setting works for diners who spent the afternoon on the sand rather than preparing for a formal evening out.
Live music and scheduled events add energy on selected dates, but the restaurant does not need a special occasion to justify the stop. Lunch with the waves outside can carry the day perfectly well.
The broad menu also gives repeat visits room to change. Begin with shrimp or tacos, return for a seafood platter, then let a steak or burger interrupt the pattern another time.
Near the end of the Virginia Beach Boardwalk’s southern stretch, the restaurant stands at 701 Atlantic Avenue, Virginia Beach, VA 23451. That puts the front door close to the sand and the patio close to the Atlantic.
The first visit may begin with the view. The next one usually begins with remembering what you ordered.