blog - NCCATCH

Commercial fisher Vicki Basnight runs a true local seafood restaurant on the Outer Banks

"Instead of blue marlin and swordfish trophies on the walls, Lone Cedar’s ceilings are covered with fishing poles, nets, crab pots, and fish traps to make the point that it’s all about the people who do the fishing." That's thanks in a large part to Vicki Basnight.

"When you pick up the specials list at the Lone Cedar Café in Nags Head, it’s hard to miss Vicki Basnight’s name," The Assembly magazine of North Carolina reports in a July 3, 2023 story at its website.

"On a spring night during the short soft-shell crab season, her name is on it four times, not just as co-owner of the restaurant she opened 27 years ago with her parents, Marc and Sandy, but also as the crabber for the fried soft-shell crab bites appetizer, the fried soft-shell platter with French fries and coleslaw, the soft-shell crab and shrimp pasta, and the stuffed softshells filled with mounds of flaky white crabmeat.

"Truthfully, she gets a little embarrassed about it. But there are other names on the menu, too: Luke Midgett, who traded another fisherman for the rockfish, Boo Daniels and Joe Elms, who caught the tuna used in two different dishes. It’s important to Basnight that you know who caught the seafood on your plate, even if it’s her: 'People need to know there’s a person attached to that seafood.'”

Basnight is an NC Catch board member, one who works hard every day to see to it that North Carolina's vital and historic commercial fishing industry endures.