Hilo Burger Joint — Restaurant in Hawaii

I'm unfortunately going to have to rate this place pretty poorly. My husband wanted to have a good burger. I looked around the area and thought, hey burger joint, they should have some good burgers. I am thoroughly surprised on the lack of flavor from everything here.

So before the burgers came out, we got some jalapeño poppers and the mozzarella sticks. Both are not made in house. I'm fairly positive they're bought from Costco. Apparently it's a thing in Hilo and other areas of the island. We've been to restaurants where they'll post signs saying their food isn't from Costco.

Anyways, the mozzarella sticks.. I'm not even sure they were mozzarella inside. The consistency was more like ricotta cheese. It was super weird. Also, I couldn't help but laugh, but the mozzarella sticks were cold and they nuked the marinara sauce 🤣. Completely opposite of every mozzarella stick dish I've ever had. The jalapeño poppers...they were just microwaved. Some were cold, some still a little frozen inside, some slightly warm. Just disappointing.

And the burgers. I tried to get something close to an original burger with some added flavor. I got the California Burger. The burger was not seasoned at all. Just like the sweet potato fries. I'm not sure if there was no mayo, mustard, ketchup or anything like that. I couldn't taste anything, so I'm not sure. Not sure if that was intentional. The bacon was not fully cooked. And this may be a thing they do, but I don't understand bringing the burgers out upside down. Like I said, it may be a thing.

My husband got The Classic. He said the same thing as far as flavor...there was none. The beef was not seasoned. At least some salt and pepper. Maybe it's from Costco as well and they're just using the preformed patties. That's the only thing I can guess.

I just feel, they need to go back and learn how to perfect a classic burger, before trying to add all the other options. And maybe the other options are good since they'll have sauces, etc. to hide the lack of flavor.

Sorry Hilo Burger Joint. We just...

We live behind this establishment and their employees are loud and disruptive to our community and have brought crime to our area which concerns us involving our young child, our elderly neighbors, and our neighbors with other young children.

We’ve attempted to call this establishment directly, email the company, ask to contact the owner, as well as confronting this business directly in person, all to which have lead to either being ignored or VERY unprofessional conduct.

We worry for our small community because of the types of staff and people this restaurant condones and unfortunately will never be visiting or recommending to other locals.

We are local business owners as well who prioritize our community and our keiki and could not recommend this establishment less unfortunately until there is major change addressed by the owner.

I can only imagine that if this is the quality tier of work and communication that is acceptable, that this is the same tier of food cleanliness and behind-the-doors professionalism that isn’t visible to the average customer.

Much mahalo and respect from us, to which our small community hopes to receive as well, Hilo Burger Joint.

-A local Hilo family

Edit:

We have emailed your website directly, called the police in regards to one of your employees to which we can provide a police report (to which around seven police arrived on scene), called your establishment and asked to notify the owner via the assistant manager on shift, and visited your store directly to which an employee said they’d notify management of our concerns. These are factual statements, please don’t disregard concerns for community safety as “slander”. We want our community, including locally owned businesses, to succeed, not be subject to harm. We find it interesting, however, that you’re able to respond quickly in regards to a negative review rather than the multiple attempts at us privately attempting to address you with...

I almost never leave reviews, but I had a truly unfortunate experience with Hilo Burger Joint, and even more unfortunate, this isn’t the first time.

I ordered 4 burgers on a slow Tuesday night: A garden burger, a bacon cheeseburger, a cheeseburger, and a #5 Big Island Burger - all medium cooked (all 3 beef patties). I ordered takeout, and they said 15-20 minutes, which it was. I picked it up, paid ~$82 for it and rounded to $90 with a tip.

It was dinner time, but they were relatively slow - around 4pm ish. I then drove 1.5 hours back home, mainly because traffic was horrendous, so we were not expecting warm fresh burgers, but all good, we were hungry lol.

Finally got home, and set everyone up at the table, took my first bite, and it was not warm or fresh, it was cold and uncooked. And I don’t mean “oh this is more medium rare than medium”, it was raw, like it must’ve touched the grill, seared for half a second, and then tossed on the buns. What’s more, is that the cheeseburger was similar, albeit slightly more cooked. And to top it off, this was BOTH patty’s in the #5 burger, both were as raw as they could get aside from the edges of the outside.

What most likely happened was that they were frozen in the center, or other patties in line on the grill were grabbed instead of the ones going up. But that’s why I pretensed this with “it was a slow Tuesday night”. So, a full day a work, $90 spent, and hour + of driving, and I have two raw meat patties and some left over fries.

At the end of the day, this is most likely an honest mistake, but this is the first time in years my family and I have been to Hilo Burger Joint specifically because this happened 2 years ago and was a small reason we never went back.

I can’t imagine it happens often, and take it with a grain of salt that this could be a “one-off”, but it definitely ruined the night….and we were all really...