On the Rocks — Restaurant in Hawaii

We’ve been to On The Rocks multiple times over the last few years. I make it a point to visit a few times each time I’m in Kona. Even worse, I’ve been raving about this place to my friends and family over the last few years.

We came back today (6/12/22) and we had a terrible experience. The wait was long, they couldn’t get a table to sit our children with us (only 6 of us in total) they removed my favorite thing on the menu and when I asked our waiter what happened to it, I received some response along the lines of “I was in High school 3-years ago and I can’t even remember what girls I was with then.” Then he laughed. I ended up finding something else to eat, but my expectations were down the drain. I ordered the Kalua Pork sandwich, which was good. My wife had the fish tacos, which were also good.

My mother ordered the fish and chip and she hated it. Overpriced, didn’t taste good, and a small portion. My father ordered the taco salad and it was, in his opinion, “ok”.

When I asked about a kids menu, the waiter just told us the few items on the menu. We ordered based on what we heard. My one kid’s meal was $6.50 (which is pretty normal for a cheese quesadilla) however my other child ordered the “3-sliders”. Big surprise when we got the bill and it was $17!!! That was the same cost as my adult size pork sandwich. I would have ordered him something else if I would have known.

Finally, about the waiter. Cameron H. He was terrible. Not only for the things I’ve already mention about him, below are a few more. When my parents went to pay, he just said what the total bill ‘s cost was and proceeded to ask for the card. My dad asked for the itemized bill to look at and since the guy already inserted the card into his handheld machine, he was unable to get back to the screen with the itemized bill. My dad said that he didn’t want to pay without seeing the bill first, and the waited proceeded to get defensive by saying “Do you think I added something to your bill?” And “I used to work at a 5-star restaurant”……like we care. Bottom line, you should show your guests the bill before processing payment.

We proceeded to ask him for a printout of the receipt and the waiter said “…but I have to walk over there to get it…” it was 20 steps away. He never brought them to us, we ended up going to get our own Print-outs.

This experience had ruined this place for me and I will not be returning again. I’m only giving a 2-star because the...

This has been my husband’s and my date spot and we have always had wonderful experiences until tonight and unfortunately it had to happen with our mainland guests. We arrived to a fairly empty restaurant and decided we would sit by the fire and enjoy the live music. My husband had a very small Gatorade bottle in his hand, and the employee rudely told him it is Hawaii law and he can’t bring in the Gatorade. We kindly explained that he has stage four cancer and literally needs the electorates. The employee insisted to us that he could not have it and had to leave or get rid of the Gatorade. We sat down and put it in my purse and figured we would order him an orange juice or something of that nature, he could not wait long before getting something to help after having just walked in. However, two more people came over and rudely started with, “What’s the problem here?” We explained it to them, they insisted it was Hawaii law, and said we weren’t allowed to use curse words even though we were upset at the service and one guy tried to say he knew someone with cancer and understands. This restaurant completely disregards the needs of it’s customers. A way they could have handled this is offered to get him a different electrolyte filled drink as soon as we explained the need. Instead they kicked us out because we offended them by cussing and insisting that my husband needed his Gatorade( also not even cussing at them just literally cussing about how ridiculous this situation was and how disappointed we were.) We are locals and have never had this experience at restaurants before and have had to have some outside electrolyte drink with us for my husband. My husband has a disability and this restaurant actually discriminated against him being there because they refused to accommodate us. It was the smallest Gatorade and we got basically kicked out of the restaurant. There was no aloha and looking out for another local. So rude and can’t believe our guests had this as their first experience...

My friend and I went to On the Rocks for dinner around 5 pm. The restaurant is located on a busy street with lots of restaurants. There are some parking spots outside the restaurant, but if those spots are full, then you can park at the parking lot next to Basik Acai. It's a shared parking lot between a few of the businesses. The restaurant was packed when we got there, but still, we were seated right away. They gace bar seating and regular seating overlooking the ocean. They also have live music every day. When we went, we had an artist play Hawaiian music as well as some classic songs. Good music and beautiful sunset in the background definitely made for a great experience, but the food, not so much. We started off with Da bomb fries for the appetizer. It was more so a full meal than an appetizer. The fries were doused in aioli and umami sauce, so their flavors were very overpowering. For our main meal, we ordered quesdilla and poke nachos. Quesdilla was okay. Poke nachos was heavy of the nachos than fish and guac. It used the same sauces as the fries, so that was a bit disappointing. Because we got there shortly before their happy hour ended, we were able to order drinks from their happy hour menu. We got mai tai and hawaiian rainbow. Mai tai was alright. Hawaiian rainbow was better and more refreshing. The second round of drinks included strawberry lava flow and a seltzer. Strawberry lava flow was pretty good and tasted like an ice cream shake. Last but not least, we also ordered the kona coffee cheescake. It was very dense and greasy, so we only took a few bites of it. Restaurant had a very tropical, relaxing, and chill vibe. Since it's all outdoor dining, there were a lot of birds flying around looking for food, but it wasn't anything that took away from our experience. The staff was super friendly and accommodating and constantly checked in on us to make sure we were okay. The ambiance and service were definitely...