Huggo's — Restaurant in Hawaii

The food was delicious. The view was incredible. The front of house was a mess though. I’ve worked in food service for almost 20 years and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced something like this. We arrived at 4:45 for our 5pm reservation and were told to sit by the fire pits until they opened at 5pm. We didn’t realize just the bar was open at 4 and the kitchen was 5. Totally fine. The host said a bartender would be out to us. No one ever came. We didn’t need beverages so it was fine. Other guests sat near us and no one came out for them. At 5:11, we got a text saying our table was ready. So then we were walked through the dining room to see everyone that came in after us had already been seated. Our server seemed attentive at the beginning. He took about 5 minutes to explain the drink/dinner/dessert menu to which we only ordered iced teas and an appetizer. He came back to check in and we gave him our entree order. He said he was still working on the teas. Waiting and still no teas. Then our entrees arrived. Where’s the appetizer? Oh about 1 minute after the entrees were brought. The server appeared with the 2 other runners and babbled about them getting the timing wrong. Then asked if everything was ok and we said it was fine. He then says something weird about being happy with his job. Then a bread basket came out 5 to 10 minutes after that. The food was delicious so we just enjoyed the view. We decided to get a dessert and watch the sunset. I’m going to guess it was around 6pm because I thought it would arrive before the 6:17pm sunset time Google gave me. We had to waive down a buser to ask about dessert around 6:29pm. Our server had never returned. He had a few other tables but it fully felt like he was avoiding us. The dessert finally appears with our awkward server saying oh he had to build it. What? It was delicious but now we’ve already been there 1.75 hrs and our server is MIA again. I flagged down another employee to ask for a box for our dessert and the check. She brought the box and said our server was right over there. I said I knew that but he hadn’t been over in an while. She said she’s grab someone to help. She came back with a print out of our bill and then the server magically appeared and almost checked her out of the way. He stood over me while I put in my payment making it very uncomfortable. His service and behavior was so awkward. Everyone seemed to know something was off and they were apologetic…but not a peep from him. So in summary, front of house...

We celebrated our wedding anniversary at Huggo’s and were extremely satisfied with our meal. Victor M. was our waiter and he was friendly and had a great sense of humor. We arrived just before 5 when they start serving dinner and had no wait. There was a steady line of people waiting to be seated over the time we were there.

We started with a Huggo’s Mai Tai, which they claim is the best on the island. It was okay, but not a drink that blew us away. Fortunately, this was the only disappointment of the night. For dinner, we had the Hook Line and Sinker (Ono) and Kalbi Style Beef Short Ribs and Shrimp followed with the Hualalai Kea Cream Pie (Mud Pie). The Hook Line and Sinker is listed as Chef Albert’s favorite creation and it did not disappoint. The fish was cooked perfectly….we loved it! The Kalbi Style Beef Short Ribs and Shrimp was also an excellent meal. Tender rib meat that had great flavor. We finished our meal with the Hualalai Kea Cream Pie, which we would call a typical mud pie with Kona coffee ice cream. The portion was huge and plenty for two people to share.

Huggo’s was the perfect place to spend our anniversary. Besides the slight disappointment with the Mai Tai, the rest of our experience was phenomenal. Watching the beautiful sunset was the icing on the cake. We highly recommend Huggo’s for the great food. We won’t wait for our...

TLDR: disorganized, overpriced gross food, horrible music.

This place is super disappointing. Way overpriced for frankly bleh food. We showed up for our reservation and were told to wait in the lounge where we were approached by a waiter asking for our drinks order. Before our drinks came the hostess came and told us our table was ready but when she found out we had ordered drinks she was disaproving because apparently we shouldn't have ordered drinks and wouldn't be taken to our table until the tab was closed. We then had to wait in the lounge area for our drinks and bill to come, then we had to hunt down the hostess so we could finally be seated. Waitress was fine, she did her job. We were seated close to Huggos on the Rocks on the balcony where we were subjected to what I must assume was a lady being paid to sing continuous karaoke. Perhaps she's a professional singer but I hope not because it was earsplitting. When our food came the fish was overcooked, the risotto was bland, and two of the beef dishes were oversalted. If we weren't paying $35+ a plate for this I would have let it slide, but at that price the food needs to be cooked properly and at least taste ok. They gave us a slice of coffee cake since we were there celebrating but we just took it home so we wouldn't have to listen to the live music any longer than we had to. Skip this overpriced...