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    The Lake House

    4.2 (167 reviews)
    ModerateSeafood, American
    Closed Closed
    Updated 3 months ago

    The Lake House Photos

    Business Info

    THE LAKE HOUSE ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Casual
    Outdoor seating
    Good for groups
    Happy hour specials

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    Recommended Reviews - The Lake House

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    Prime Rib Dinner w/ Baked Potato and Bacon Wrapped Asparagus
    Sarah N.

    Amazing service. Great food. Huge portions. Reasonable pricing. At-Home charm and ambiance. If I lived in town, I'd be a regular. Definitely make a reservation. We were just passing through Santee SC for an overnight and sought out the Prime Rib dinner at the Lake House. It definitely did not disappoint! All the wait staff were super friendly and helpful. They pride themselves on scratch cooking (as do I!). Be sure to save room for dessert and plan on not being able to finish it. I gotta say, the OMG Carrot Cake just might be the best carrot cake since I got married so many years ago. Each slice is 4 layers tall and so massive that it's served on a dinner plate.

    Menu
    Tom T.

    Overrated. Too expensive. The price-performance ratio of tasty, quality offerings for the cost just is not there. This place benefits from its co-located relationship with the RV park. RVers are a "captured audience" since onecan walk from his or her RV to the restaurant. This is quite convenient. As well, the restaurant is located in a scenic environment. These are the two big pluses. As stated earlier, offerings are not tasty. They are way overpriced for what is delivered. One in our party had Yaya's cut of steak for 35 bucks. Take a look at the picture below and ask yourself a question: would you pay 35 bucks for this? The taste was not there. The portion size was not commencement for the price. Salads are not delivered as salads, but rather a bed of greens slathered with so much dressing that one can barely taste the salad at all. This place is a huge disappointment and a waste of your dollars. Don't bother stopping by.

    Prime Rib
    Jason F.

    While in Santee on golf trips, we consistently choose The Lake House as our top dining option. To avoid wait times, we suggest making reservations in advance, and for karaoke fans, Friday nights are an excellent choice. My personal favorites on the menu are the ribeye sandwich and collard greens, and I have yet to experience a disappointing dish. For exceptional service , fun dining experience and an expert for management of golf guys! Request Juicy as your server she is the best!

    Gator!
    Lauren T.

    This place was hopping! Great ambience and views! The staff were friendly. The crab cakes were delicious as was the clam chowder. The fried green tomatoes were tasty especially with the Cajun mayo. The fried pork chops were great especially with the creamy garlic mashed potatoes. And let me tell you about the CARROT CAKE. The best I ever had! Generous portions too!

    Front of Restaurant
    Linda S.

    Let's start off with - make a reservation!!! They will be ready for you and you won't have to wait. The Lake House is a family owned restaurant that over looked Lake Marion. You can watch the sunset in the evening. It has a dock for parking on the lake. The set up is very nice. We had reservations so we were seated quickly and were greeted promptly by Jessica. She was very sweet, very helpful, and checked on us often!!! Top notch service! Two meals caught our eyes. One was the catfish. It was noted that it was from Lake Marion and swimming earlier in the day. We had to ask Jessica about it. Sure enough she confirmed it was fresh!! The second one was the Prime Rib only served on Saturday starting at 5 pm. We enjoyed both dinners. I loved the PRIME RIB. To finish the meal we had to try one of there many cakes. We tried the carrot cake and it tasted really good! It was a great finish to our meal. We walked down to the dock just before we left. It was a very enjoyable dining experience.

    Full bar with refreshing cocktails and a view of both the pool and the lake!
    Cindy P.

    Food, service and views are all spot on! The only thing that wasn't perfect was the hostess, she seemed very upset about life!! That's a slippery slope too because she's the first impression! Thank goodness for Jess, our server, she was phenomenal! She made very good recommendations, super friendly and very efficient. She checked on us periodically, kept our drinks filled and was genuinely interested in us as her customers. The food was delicious! Steak was cooked perfectly as ordered and well seasoned, shrimp were succulent and super thin coating, the baked potato was hot and baked nice and soft and the twisted shrimp was addicting! Did I mention house made blue cheese dressing?!! Definitely a five star establishment and highly recommended!

    Blackened catfish

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    1 month ago

    Great food always going back every other day staff is a blessing love the lake house

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    15 days ago

    Excellent! Can't wait to go back. The flounder dinner was cooked and seasoned to perfection!

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    Dennis T.

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    1 year ago

    Outstanding! Excellent food and service! The cakes are out of this world. The atmosphere was good just alittle loud.

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    1 year ago

    Great food and ambience, we would go back next time we are in Santee. Beautiful view at sunset

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    Page 1 of 5

    Ask the Community - The Lake House

    Captain's Quarters

    Captain's Quarters

    4.0
    (259 reviews)
    0.4 mi
    $$

    Stopped off at halfway point in our travels and we aren't mad about it. Santee SC is a lil hidden…read moreGem right off 95. Checked in to Fairfield and looked for close dinner spot. Captains Quarters is just across the street. Yelp showed great reviews and the menu was super appealing. Mix of seafood, steaks and just good home cooking. It opens at 5pm for dinner weekdays. We got there about 6 to a pretty large crowd already. Apparently the locals know . Gypsy was our amazing server. Sweet and super knowledgeable. She's this places best advertisement. She had great tips on the whole menu. She was spot on for the red sauce. Chicken parm was perfectly tender. Sauce was like Nonnas. Recommendation to do the shrimp blackened was perfect. Way too much food for sure but she did warn that we would not go home hungry!! Beer was cold. Wine recommended was perfect and did we mention Ms Ellie? Ms E is an amazing young lady who stood watch on the whole dining room. With a hawklike gaze she quickly recognized a table needing bussed or a chair needing straightened And didn't need a prompt. Her quick action ensured table turn times were super Low. Please recognize her hard work. She's making everyone money!!! We stopped by to show her our appreciation on our way out and she lit up . Two big meals. Beer and wine and I was embarrassed how small our bill was. What a great bargain and great find. We booked the same hotel for our April trip so we can come back here!! See ya soon Gypsy!!

    Tourist trap! Very high prices for the portions. Food had to be returned because it wasn't Hot. How…read moredo you serve lukewarm food if you take it directly from the chef to the table? The waitress did the bare minimum of taking the order and nothing else. On top of that, they charge an additional 3-5% after taxes for using a debit card. By the lack of upkeep on the grounds, entryway, paint and carpet, you can see that they focus on quantity rather than quality.

    Photos
    Captain's Quarters
    Captain's Quarters
    Captain's Quarters

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    Mill Street Grill

    Mill Street Grill

    3.9
    (32 reviews)
    20.6 mi

    Lets face it: we all judge certain books by their covers. Sometimes we don't even look at the cover…read morebefore we already have a preconceived notion of what we will experience. These are all based on past experiences, so there is certainly some validity to these judgements. Sometimes we are right, sometimes we are wrong. But our ideas of how things should be, and are, often align. I was judging the hell out of this cover. I didn't even want to see the author or the title page or the table of contents. I was in the middle of nowhere SC and starving. I had been looking for somewhere to eat for the last hour but Francis Marion National Forest isn't exactly Times Square. It was nothing but trees for miles. Side note: when driving through uninhabited places like this (my cell phone had no signal for most of an hour) I always wonder, morbidly perhaps, if there are any dead bodies out there? Surely there was some Ted Bundy acolyte that decided to follow in the steps of his mentor, take a hostage, and dispose of the body. Am I the only one thinking this? I often wonder and plot how I could get away with the perfect crime. What else am I going to think about for 60 minutes? I pulled into the parking lot and liked what I saw. The place looked fairly new. The asphalt in the parking lot was still cooling from just being poured, the signs and lights that adorned the exterior were bright and new, good stuff. The interior represented more of the book cover I was imagining. A little run down. It was cold outside so the buffet steamers had the place as humid as Key West in July. I could just hear the moisture penetrating and settling in the carpet and ceilings and window panes. I sat at the bar and chose the buffet for the meal. Remember, I had just contemplated the perfect crime (and solved the mystery, btw), so my brains and body were depleted. I saw a whole new set of covers to judge at the buffet line. And I will be honest, it looked like I was about to read War and Peace while high on marijuana: does plain and arduous ring a bell? The food was actually pretty damn tasty. Nothing blew my mind but nothing made me want to hurl insults or regret my decision to dine here. The fried chicken, as buffet fried chicken often tastes, was dry and chewy. Was this a product of the grueling buffet environs or a product of poor cooking? I lean toward the former because everything else was A-OK. Bonus points for having black eyed peas, a true southern delicacy. All in all a pretty good place. Nothing was five star but nothing was one star. Outside of the 2.5 star chicken, I give it a solid 4. I had the mac and cheese, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, black eyed peas, green beans, and even the cake was ok. If caught in the muck and mire of the Swamp Loggers haven, I would come here again.

    First of all after reading reviews from 2020 it doesn't seem fair that the new owners of The Grille…read morehave responsibility for the older reviews. The restaurant is always clean and the service is great. We go to Trivia every Wednesday and always have a fun time. I think sometimes people don't understand that it isn't easy running a restaurant. The Owners are local and work hard to make their business successful. I know from experience that it's hard to please everybody and its usually the ones that complain that write the reviews.

    Photos
    Sunday buffet
    Sunday buffet
    Sunday buffet desserts
    Sunday buffet desserts
    Mill Street Grill

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    Bistro 221

    Bistro 221

    4.3
    (164 reviews)
    21.7 mi
    $$

    Pleasantly surprised by Bistro 221. It's in a very small town along I-95, and you wouldn't…read morenecessarily expect much - but it delivers. From the first phone inquiry to the experience in the restaurant, the people were genuinely polite and welcoming. The atmosphere felt calm, relaxed, and easy. The food exceeded expectations. The Cobb salad was especially good - fresh, well-balanced, and thoughtfully put together, with healthy ingredients and no bacon, which I appreciated. The shrimp tacos were excellent, topped with a slightly sweet/spicy, mysterious sauce that worked really well. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area!!!

    We had lunch here for the first time today. They have street parking or parking in the back. There…read moreis a bar area, general sitting area or a few tables under a cover porch for nice days. The staff were all very polite and friendly. We were seated quickly with drink orders taken. It took a few minutes to get the drinks, but thats OK. A larger table was seated before us so its all good. We placed our food order of the Loaded Fries for an appetizer, 2 Killer Club sandwichs(pesto on the side)with fries, Secret Philly with onion rings and the Blackened Fish Tacos with the chips salsa and queso. The Loaded Fries were delicious! Plenty of bacon and queso on them. The Philly was delicious, onion rings hot and crispy. The kids loved their Club sandwiches. They were HUGE and the kids could have easily split one. The Blackened Fish Tacos were the only negative on our trip. They were pale colored, hardly warm, and the slaw was soggy. Honestly they were aweful! My husband tried a bite and said it tasted like it was from yesterdays trash. I have seen tons of good reviews on them so I'm not sure if they have been changed or I got them on a bad day or what. I hate sending food back, so I just ate them. I tried throwing pesto from the clubs, salsa or queso on bites trying to make them better, but nothing really helped. Overall we will definitely be back again, just not ordering the tacos!

    Photos
    Designer creative, inside and outside dining!
    Designer creative, inside and outside dining!
    Cobb Salad
    Cobb Salad
    Excellent bar tenders. The owner was mixing his own Bloody Mary recipe. Definitely stopping the next time we drive through to try it!

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    Excellent bar tenders. The owner was mixing his own Bloody Mary recipe. Definitely stopping the next time we drive through to try it!
    Cracker Barrel Old Country Store

    Cracker Barrel Old Country Store

    3.0
    (126 reviews)
    0.4 mi
    $

    As always plenty parking; friendly staff; ; for a chain restaurant the food is delicious served…read morequickly and so many options for breakfast lunch and dinner ; the place is kept clean fun great for families

    We arrived at our hotel late in the evening and there are not many places open past 9pm in the…read morearea. Cracker Barrel was open until 11pm so we walked over. Justin was our server and he actually greeted us outside. We did not wait more than 2 minutes before someone greeted us at the host stand and actually apologized for making us wait! As we were walking to our table, we noticed the fireplace going and it had real wood! It was so cozy! Justin approached us not long after and offered us to order drinks. We ordered waters, wine, and beer. So the last time we dined at Cracker Barrel was almost 11 years ago because we became deathly ill. The last time, I do not believe they served alcohol so we were surprised seeing it on the menu. Our drinks were delivered quickly and Justin offered us to order dinner. Hubs ordered the Country Fried Turkey with mac and cheese and hashbrown casserole. I ordered the Country Vegetable Plate with green beans, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, and hashbrown casserole. Justin came back later and informed us there was only enough hashbrown casserole for one of us so he said I could order a side salad for no extra charge-sweet! Our food arrived not too long after and the salad was massive! Very fresh too! The Hashbrown casserole was good, everything else was okay but not magnificent. When we went to checkout, there were people taking way too long while their f'in kids were causing havoc in the store so we paid by using the QR code on the receipt. Our check was $45, which was pretty decent for 2 meals, 2 beers, and 1 wine. Oh but there were charges for getting apple butter and having a mix of biscuits and cornbread- was not aware of that when ordering. The bathroom was as clean as it could be but definitely needs to be upgraded. Best part of all, we did not get sick! We will be back if we are in the area again.

    Photos
    Cracker Barrel Old Country Store
    Cracker Barrel, Santee
    Cracker Barrel, Santee
    Cracker Barrel Old Country Store

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    The Lake House - seafood - Updated July 2026

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