Don's Mai Tai Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Hawaii

Honestly, it pains me to write this review. I just had my wedding here and have been staying here for 10 days now so I wanted to eat here a few times before I wrote a review. This place has the absolute worst service I’ve ever experienced. And my husband and I eat out quite a bit (I’m no food critic but I appreciate decent/good service). I have worked in the service industry my entire life and would not treat people the way they do at Dons Mai Tai Bar.

First of all, good luck getting a server to help you - from the beginning, they generally will not take a drink order (after eating here 6 times too many) until you’ve been sat for 15-20 mins or even greet you. The hostess will ask you to move to another table if you’re sitting at the bar for a to go order, and then seat someone at the new table she asked you to sit at while you wait for one piece of cake for 30 minutes. The bartender on Tuesday morning during breakfast yelled at every single customer that approached the bar that “it’s not open yet” and gave no time for opening. At 7:15, she yelled at a customer that “the bar doesn’t open until 7”. Which obviously doesn’t make sense - she could just say something like “give me a few minutes and I’ll be right with you”, it’s not too difficult. Also, don’t expect to pay for your meal in a timely fashion or get any refills. All the servers I had failed to check on us or would just forget when we asked for more coffee or utensils. Each meal was about 2 hours when we should have been done in about an hour. It’s also sad because their food is actually pretty good. But paying higher prices than in town for terrible service and decent food is not worth it. Save yourself time and your sanity and walk to literally any other bar/restaurant in town.

I understand being short staffed and working during Covid is stressful - I’ve been doing it since the pandemic started. But you don’t have to treat people this way especially in the food service or hospitality industry. It makes me sad to write this because all other staff at this hotel are friendly and helpful and I had the most amazing wedding. The worst part is that on vacation, it’s convenient to eat at your hotel restaurant. Because of the service here, I doubt I will ever stay at this...

We stayed at the Royal Kona for a week and enjoyed breakfast here everyday! Everything was great except for the final day. My partner and I were uncomfortable with the interaction we had with the waitress (who also happened to be the supervisor) we had the morning of 4/11.

There was a mix up with the meal vouchers provided by our travel agency and we were only supposed to redeem them for a specific meal. All week we had been allowed to redeem them for any meal that was under $19 and didn’t know that we were limited to one breakfast option. When we let our waitress know that all week our other waiters allowed us to choose any meal under $19, she announced that she was the supervisor and wanted us to specify every single person who had waited on us over the past 7 days. This made us really uncomfortable because we had a really great experience with the staff all week and didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.

She allowed us to order as we had the previous days, but I felt that she retaliated against our table. She checked on us once, in passing. However, I witnessed her stop and check on several other tables multiple times and felt that she was avoiding us over this situation. Upon checking out, we also learned that this meal had been charged to our room despite providing the voucher. For the past 7 days, the other folks who had waited on us submitted our voucher without an issue but this meal was the only one that had been charged. We had to spend an additional 15 minutes at check out having the front desk call the restaurant and confirm we turned in our meal voucher. This is another reason I feel that we were retaliated against.

As someone who has worked in hospitality and the service industry, I wouldn’t ask for customers to provide the names of others or avoid them. It was uncomfortable and we’re not trying to get others in trouble over a miscommunication, especially since they work so hard. Everyone else we interacted with was lovely and it’s a shame that our final meal was ruined by an...

Don's Mai Tai Bar & Restaurant was excellent. We were staying at the Royal Kona Resort and wound up here for dinner on two different nights. We totally enjoyed the view, the food & drinks, and the service both times!

Don's Loaded Nachos were a very filling and quite tasty appetizer. The portion is very large and the ingredients were spot on. The Loco Moco is very tasty and properly prepared. The House Salad with the Chicken Skewers was very fresh, had great flavor and was very filling. The Yucatan Street Tacos were very large and were full of ingredients. There were 3 on the plate but I could only eat two and a half before I was too full!

The Mai Tai's here are quite good, and they offer many variations if the standard Mai Tai isn't your thing. They aren't too strong, but are also not weak.

Service on both nights was great. Our servers were very friendly and made great suggestions. They were also very good at keeping the drinks refilled and they stopped by to check on us just enough without interrupting our conversation. We did not have a reservation either night, but had very short waits to get a table.

The view of the ocean from Don's Mai Tai Bar & Restaurant was wonderful, especially at sunset. The decor was simple, but tasteful. The restaurant is entirely a covered outdoor space and the area was very clean and appeared to be well maintained. Restrooms are not immediately near the bar/restaurant, but are not too far of a walk.

The food is a little higher in price than some off-resort restaurants would be, but the service, quality and quantity of the food, and the view more than make up for it.

Even if you're not staying at the Royal Kona Resort, I would highly recommend stopping here for dinner. I look forward to when I can...