Lava Lava Beach Club — Attraction in Hawaii

Restaurant review:

I was a bit hesitant to come here as I didn't want to be amongst nothing but tourists, feeling like I'm at a hybrid luau. While this was the case, it wasn't tacky like how a luau can be, and I was glad to see a few local residents patronizing them.

ATMOSPHERE: Past all the moonscape, there is civilization at the end of the road! An open-air beach house comes alive with accents from all parts of the world, sunburnt skin, fresh & artificial lei, and Tommy Bahama shirts and shorts. You know, just like at Mama's Fish House. rolleyes

The main restaurant area is a big covered lanai. It's a mix of high tops and regular tables, with a big bar toward the back. A few steps down is another covered area with a few tables. But what most people want are the tables on the sand. There's a bunch of sofa chairs with very low tables that line the beach and are good for large parties like 8+. I personally think it would be hard to enjoy your dinner in that set up. We were right next to them on the regular tables, still on the sand. Once sunset hits, so does everyone else, camera/phone in hand, on the beach. After the sun goes down they have nice ambient lighting and tiki torches. A hard-working entertainer sang for hours and took requests.

MENU: American apps, salads, fish, burgers, desserts.

FOOD: Rib Teaser I'm not a rib fan but tried some. They were super tender, tasty, and fell off the bone. The guava and hoisin sauce was good too; a bit sweet and tangy.

Sizzling Shrimp The sizzling quickly died down due to the breezy conditions, but the flavor did not! Butter makes everything better. And so does garlic. The shrimp they use were probably the 21-25/lb. size, a bit small, but you'll forget about that once you start consuming. Dip the garlic bread in that heavenly sauce and you'll be wanting to order more! Highly recommended.

Hukilau Chowder It's a white chowder, yay! The flavors were good, but it wasn't searing hot, unfortunately. I like to scare my tongue with some degrees! I detected potatoes, clams, and bacon in the medium textured soup.

RESERVATIONS: We made them via Open Table for 5:15pm. We checked in a little before 5pm and got our table seats on the sand. It was busy for a Sunday night but not overly. Once 8pm hit, there were a few open tables on the sand.

SERVICE: Our male server was awesome! He was very warm, welcoming, professional, and checked on us frequently.

OVERALL: Nice ambiance and concept, very touristy, okay food,...

TLDR: great location and atmosphere, okay food at best, service ranges from great to terrible (depending on who), terrible overall experience, maybe just got an off night.

Full review:

We ate at sunset, and the location for that is great, live music was perfect, loud enough to hear but quiet enough you could talk. Atmosphere was really amazing overall, one of my favorite atmospheres I have experienced.

Food varied. We had the ahi appetizer (not poke) and it was honestly amazing, best ahi tuna I’ve had, with great sauce, presentation and flavors. We also had the tropical salsa appetizer. The salsa was good but not great, probably more a preference thing than quality. The chips were incredibly salty, to the point of inedible (we generally like salty food compared to most)

For entrees we got the LLBC burger. The burger itself was just okay, bun was dry, beef was a bit charred but not terrible. The fries were some of the worst I’ve ever had, dry bland potato strips with so much salt they were again inedible. We also got the teriyaki steak. The cut was clearly a very good piece of meat but we ordered medium to medium rare, what we received was clearly rare (I order my steaks rare, but my wife finds rare gross, and this was her entree). Overall the food was on average bad, with probably a few good dishes mixed into the menu. The ingredients seem good though, the cook just failed, waste of great ingredients.

The steak brings me to the next major issue, terrible service. It can vary by employee (the hostess and bar tender at the bar you can use while waiting for your table were both extremely nice), but the server we got was unacceptable. We wanted to return the steak and get it cooked more. Instead we sat there so long waiting for the waiter (tried flagging him down too) that I finished my dry burger, and my wife gave up and ate the parts she could tolerate and we asked for the check and left. I never got my water refilled even though it was empty before we got our meals. When we brought this up to the server he just said “sorry to hear” and walked off. No resolution offered.

Not worth the price for just a good atmosphere, but there clearly is at least one good thing on the menu so maybe if you can find the good things and get one of the good servers it would be an acceptable experience. Maybe we were there on...

We went to Lava Lava Saturday (just landed from the mainland) for an early dinner 10/5, it was absolutely a 5 star experience (a little worried based on prior reviews), however our late lunch on 10/11 knocked it to a 3 star star (and should be less based on the bar-tending immature goofballs that afternoon)! Insanely different experience and maturity level of the bar staff between the two visits.

Sunday’s (10/5) service was amazing, the food…over the top delicious! We sat at one of the round tables in the bar area. We split the chef special and the ahi appetizer per the recommendation of the server who also worked behind the bar… wished I could remember his name. So much food. And we enjoyed the Hawaiian Cocktails - hubby had the Mai Tai and I had the ‘Tall Nan’i with a shot on the side 😀.

Now come later lunch on Friday (10/11) - we were expecting that same (or similar) experience based on our last visit. We sat in the bar area again but actually at the bar this time as the blonde bar tender with with sunglasses said we couldn't sit at the tables (some lame reason), however, 5 minutes later he sat 3 people at one of those tables. They had the Oregon and Ohio game playing in the background. My goodness….at least 4-5 guys behind the bar, constantly touching each other, hugging, admiring their own work (or lack of IMO). They were so enamored with one another and themselves. I thought I was back at a frat party in college who were oblivious to the world (and now customers). And with all those guys (all young white guys and no women) behind the bar - and ‘having to ask to order food’ or ‘refresh our drinks’.... was unacceptable! Watching these guys fall over themselves, yuck! They need an experienced mature person behind that bar to keep them on task and keep the touching thing outside the food establishment. We’re there to enjoy our food - not to vomit up in mouths and feel inferior. We are paying top dollar for food and drinks. All we want is good service. Focus on the customers, not...