Wetland restoration is a critical component of a multi-faceted coastal management strategy to compensate for impacts from disturbance and development. An important restoration goal is to support local economies by reestablishing essential ecosystem services such as erosion protection, fishery support, and carbon sequestration. However, older restoration sites are seldom evaluated to assess their longer-term capacity to provide ecosystem services. We compared metrics linked to key ecosystem services across a series of restored marsh islands (established between 2004 and 2012) and reference salt marsh sites in Galveston Bay on the Upper Texas Coast (USA). We estimated carbon sequestration potential from high resolution elevation surveys, soil carbon content, and plant cover and biomass. We evaluated food web support by assessing the relative abundance of basal trophic sources, particularly benthic microalgae and infauna. In older restored sites, plant cover and biomass were variable among islands, and substantial portions of the area had subsided to low tidal or subtidal elevations. Despite differences in the plant community, soil organic content concentrations in the older restored sites approached reference site conditions. However, trophic support for coastal food webs differed among sites; restored sites had more diverse plant communities and up to 4x more infauna, but half as much benthic microalgae. Overall, when considering metrics of ecosystem function, the restored sites provided a unique set of values to the Galveston Bay ecosystem, but these functions did not necessarily approach reference conditions. Restored sites, unlike reference areas, did not have a high elevation refuge for retreat in response to sea level rise, and may have limited capacity to respond to sea level rise. These results highlight the long-term benefits of including topographic heterogeneity, including high elevation refuges, in restoration site design, thus increasing the capacity of restored areas to persist and provide ecosystem services over decadal time scales.