Restaurants in Niceville

The open kitchen at Bruno’s Pizza reveals the cooking process for all to see. Before customers' eyes, pizza chefs toss dough into the air and whip up house sauces, using these as building blocks in pizzas, calzones, and towering crust castles. Their specialty pizzas are laden with toppings that include black olives, italian sausage, and portobello mushrooms; one pizza even comes with five types of peppers. Craft beer or soda accompanies each meal.

Brian, DR, and Lee at Dirt Road Cookers are a tight-knit gang of old-fashioned sausage-smokers and brisket-wranglers, and they have the cowboy hats to prove it. Now, within the trio’s shrine to all things sauce-slathered, customers dine on a menu tangy barbecue chicken, tender pork ribs, and spicy housemade sausage paired with summertime mainstays including potato salad, baked beans, and coleslaw. In addition to helping them hone their barbecuing chops, their years behind the smoker also taught them the value of efficient eating; all of their eats are available for munching on the premises or in handy to-go orders.

For more than 60 years, the Original Waterfront Crab Shack has peppered its patrons’ palates with steamed, grilled, and fried seafood, as well as juicy burgers and crisp salads. As chefs bustle in the kitchen, libation wizards behind two full-service bars dole out wine, beer, and liquor. Overlooking the Santa Rosa Sound, the eatery’s expansive outdoor deck boasts picnic-table-style eating and ample views of a trolling boats and the occasional waterskiing muskie.

Landshark's Pizza fulfills Brian Hassman's dream of opening a casual eatery where televisions screen any broadcasted sports game while pizza and wings muffle the distraction of stomach rumbles. More than 20 toppings—including mako shark—adorn hand-tossed, brick-oven pizzas, and 22 sauces host wading parties for wings, shark bites, and otherwise flavorless parking tickets. To clear the throat before leading a cheer for the chefs, fans can guzzle one of Landshark's rotating selection of 8–10 tap beers.

Inspired by her upbringing in a proud, Italian-American household, the owner of Carmelinas On The Go applies long-standing family traditions to her food truck’s house-made cuisine. Like the odds of rain dissolving a toupee made of sugar cubes, the truck’s menu varies from day to day, though italian beef sandwiches, creamy potato salad, and street tacos are regular contributors. For dessert, the mobile eatery drizzles house-made bread pudding with amaretto sauce and assembles dessert nachos from crisp tortillas, chocolate syrup, and fruit compote.

Only a thin strip of beach and windswept landscaping stand between the glassy waters of the Gulf and Rick’s Crab Trap, where a trio of chefs steams, grills, and fries freshly harvested fruits of the sea. The culinary team handcrafts crab cakes daily and cooks whatever catch fishermen bring in, whether it’s yellowfin tuna or a net full of flounder. They also take creative liberty with their tropical mixed drinks, which carry such ocean-themed titles as the Crab Apple cocktail and the Pink Docksider––a lemonade named after boats that get sunburned after being moored in one place for too long.

Collaged nautical paraphernalia hangs from the eatery's white walls, and fishing nets tangled with colorful, fake lobsters drape over its windows. Al fresco diners taste the sea air while gazing at clownfish playing hooky from school across the gently undulating horizon.